FEDS APPEAL TO OVERTURN OREGON ASSISTED-SUICIDE MEASURE

SAN FRANCISCO -(AP)- The federal government resumed its bid to ban Oregon
doctors from helping terminally ill patients commit suicide, urging a
federal appeals court Monday to strike down the only such state law in the
nation.

Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to sanction and perhaps hold
Oregon doctors criminally liable if they prescribe lethal doses of
medication, as allowed by the voter-approved Death With Dignity Act.

"The attorney general has permissibly concluded that suicide is not a
legitimate medical purpose," Justice Department attorney Jonathan H. Levy
wrote in the appeal filed at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A federal judge in Portland, Ore., blocked the Justice Department from
punishing Oregon doctors ---- such as stripping them of their ability to
dispense medication if they prescribe lethal doses of medication to the
terminally ill.

In a sharp rebuke to Ashcroft, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled in
April that the Controlled Substances Act ---- the federal law declaring what
drugs doctors may prescribe ---- does not give the federal government the
power to say what is a legitimate medical practice.

Ashcroft first declared on Nov. 6 that the federal government had such
power. The government reiterated that point Monday, arguing the act
"prohibits physicians from prescribing controlled substances except for
legitimate medical purposes."

Oregon voters first approved the state law in 1994 and overwhelmingly
affirmed it in another vote three years later.

The law allows terminally ill patients, given fewer than six months to live,
to request a lethal dose of drugs after two doctors confirm the diagnosis
and judge the patient mentally competent to make the request.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, who is a physician, signed the law in 1998.
Since then, Oregon has reported that at least 91 people have used the law to
end their lives. Most suffered from cancer.

"The Oregon law has proven itself over its five years of use to be careful
and moderate and helpful for patients," said Barbara Combs Lee, president of
Portland-based Compassion in Dying.

Ashcroft's Nov. 6 directive also banned any lethal prescriptions on grounds
they do not qualify as medication under the federal Controlled Substances
Act.

"Prescriptions of controlled substances are illicit whenever not made for a
legitimate medical purpose, and the attorney general has reasonably
concluded that suicide is not such a purpose," Levy wrote.

Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers challenged Ashcroft in federal court
last fall. Ashcroft's directive reversed a 1998 opinion by former U.S.
Attorney General Janet Reno.

The state argues that regulating and licensing doctors are responsibilities
of state government. Myers argued that Congress intended only to prevent
illegal drug trafficking by doctors under the Controlled Substances Act, and
it left any decisions about medical practice up to the states.

"The federal government doesn't have authority to say what is a legitimate
medical purpose," said Kevin Neely, a spokesman for Myers.

But an Oregon doctors group that opposes the assisted-suicide law rejects
the states' rights argument.

"The law works by forbidding Oregon doctors, and only Oregon doctors, from
enforcing the nationwide medical ethics against assisted suicide," said
Gregory Hamilton, a Portland doctor and spokesman for Oregon-based
Physicians for Compassionate Care. "Virtually every medical group in the
United States forbids assisted suicide as undermining the doctor-patient
relationship."

Oregon has about a month to respond to the appeal. The court has not said
when it would hear the case.

Also pending before the San Francisco circuit court is an appeal from
doctors challenging Justice Department sanctions -- including losing their
ability to prescribe medication -- if they recommend patients use medical
marijuana. California, Oregon and six other states allow sick patients to
use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.

The case is Oregon v. Ashcroft, 02-35587.