UNLOCK HAWAII'S LABORATORY OF LIBERTY

THE ISSUE: A judge has rejected Attorney General John Ashcroft's challenge
of Oregon's law allowing physician-assisted suicide.

PROTECTORS of states' rights won an important -- although expected -- ruling
in a federal judge's rejection of Attorney General John Ashcroft's brazen
attempt to undermine Oregon's law allowing physician-assisted suicide. The
absurd argument that death-with-dignity legislation in Hawaii would violate
the federal drug-trafficking laws cited by Ashcroft can no longer be used.

Ashcroft maintained that a doctor's lethal prescription to a terminally ill
patient desiring an end to ongoing pain violated the federal Controlled
Substance Act's requirement that drugs be used for a "legitimate medical
purpose." As U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones of Oregon pointed out,
Congress has twice rejected bills to ban physician-assisted suicide, leaving
such medical matters for states to decide. The Controlled Substances Act was
intended to combat drug trafficking and abuse, not interfere with states'
traditional regulation of physicians.

Ironically, the U.S. Supreme Court arrived at the same conclusion five years
ago when it upheld Washington state's ban on assisted suicide. "States are
presently undertaking extensive and serious evaluation of physician-assisted
suicide and other related issues," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor explained.
The task of safeguarding such "liberty interests," she added, should be
entrusted to the "laboratory" of the states.

The Death With Dignity Act was approved as an initiative by Oregon voters in
1994 and overwhelmingly affirmed three years later. The law allows a doctor
to prescribe a lethal dose of medicine when requested by a terminally ill
Oregon resident diagnosed as having less than six months to live who is
mentally alert and whose request has been approved by two physicians, a
psychologist and a social worker. Since it was signed into law in 1998, at
least 91 people, most of them afflicted with cancer, have used it to end
their suffering.

The Hawaii House has approved a bill similar to the Oregon statute, but Sen.
David Matsuura has abused his power as chairman of the Senate Health
Committee by blocking the proposal. Matsuura cited Ashcroft's challenge of
the Oregon law to support his obstructionism, but the Big Island Democrat's
reasons are understood to be based on his religious beliefs.

Matsuura essentially has locked the door to what O'Connor described as the
state's laboratory. While Judge Jones scolded Ashcroft for trying to "stifle
an ongoing, earnest and profound debate in the various states concerning
physician-assisted suicide," Matsuura has taken upon himself the role of
stifling that debate in Hawaii. Governor Cayetano yesterday called on
Matsuura to permit a vote on the bill. Other legislators also should demand
that the laboratory door be opened and that the democratic process go
forward.