ASHCROFT OVERSTEPS AUTHORITY

THE nation's chief law enforcement officer doesn't get it.
Fortunately, a federal judge in Portland, Ore., does. U.S. District
Judge Robert Jones should be applauded for putting Attorney General
John Ashcroft in his place when it comes to interpreting federal law
to fit political agendas.

The attorney general clearly hoped to block Oregon's assisted-suicide
law by using the federal Controlled Substances Act as leverage. He
threatened Oregon doctors, who can legally prescribe federally
controlled drugs - like morphine-to facilitate the death of
terminally ill patients, with losing their licenses if they
prescribed such medicine.

The attorney general's edict, which was immediately challenged and
stayed by a federal court, would have effectively ended Oregon's
Death with Dignity law because no doctor wants to risk losing a
license critical to a medical practice or face federal sanctions.

It was a stunning example of the federal government trying to usurp
states' rights to regulate the practice of medicine and circumvent
the will of Oregonians who voted twice to approve their landmark
assisted-suicide law.

It is the only one of its kind in the country, allowing adults to
request a lethal dose of drugs if two doctors verify the patient has
less than six months to live and is mentally capable of making the
request. Doctors provide but do not administer the drugs.

The Bush Administration, along with many conservatives in Congress,
opposes assisted-suicide as immoral public policy. Oregon's law has
been challenged almost continually since voter approval in 1994 and
1997.

Judge Jones acknowledged the validity of arguments against assisted
suicide while still affirming every point in the state's case. "The
fact that opposition to assisted suicide may be fully justified,
morally, ethically, religiously, or otherwise, does not permit a
federal statute to be manipulated from its true meaning to satisfy
even a worthy goal."

Therein lies the crux of the matter. The federal court never
addressed the broader issues surrounding the controversial law or
whether there is a constitutional right to assisted suicide. It
prudently focused on whether the federal drug act, aimed primarily at
controlling interstate drug abuse and trafficking, could also be
applied to assisted suicide.

The judge left no doubt that such an application was a stretch.
Moreover, he ruled, Congress never intended to give the attorney
general authority to determine what constitutes a legitimate medical
purpose or practice in relation to the dispensing of drugs.

Judge Jones rebuked the not-so-transparent attempt by Mr. Ashcroft to
"stifle" debate about the issue by single-handedly deciding what the
"correct" national policy on assisted-suicide should be. That isn't
his job. The court said he overstepped his authority.

But John Ashcroft doesn't get it. An appeal is likely. The man who
vowed to uphold the rule of law as attorney general nearly ran
Oregon's voter-approved law into the ground. What rule of law will he
challenge next?