JUDGE BLOCKS U.S. BID TO BAN SUICIDE LAW

A federal judge in Oregon yesterday rejected an effort by the Justice
Department to block the state's assisted suicide law. In a decision
sharply critical of Attorney General John Ashcroft, the judge said
Mr. Ashcroft lacked the authority to decide ``what constitutes the
legitimate practice of medicine.''

The law took effect in 1997 and has, according to the court, been
used to help end the lives of about 70 people. Oregon is the only
state that sanctions assisted suicide.

``This is an important victory not only for Oregon,'' said Stephen K.
Bushong, an assistant state attorney general, ``but also for people
of the states who want to look at their own laws and decide for
themselves how to handle medical practices.''

The Justice Department said it had not decided whether to appeal. It
referred reporters to Assistant Attorney General Robert McCallum, who
said: ``The Department remains convinced that its interpretation of
the Controlled Substances Act as prohibiting the use of federally
controlled drugs to assist suicide is correct.

``A just and caring society should do its best to assist in coping
with the problems that afflict the terminally ill. It should not
abandon or assist in killing them. Doctors should not use controlled
substances to assist suicide.''

The decision involved a Justice Department effort to use the
Controlled Substances Act, a statute mainly concerned with drug abuse
and illegal drug trafficking, to punish doctors who complied with
requests from patients under the Oregon law. The law allows mentally
competent patients who are terminally ill to ask their doctors for
lethal drugs.

Doctors must register with the Drug Enforcement Administration to
dispense drugs, and Congress has authorized the attorney general to
revoke those registrations in some situations.

In November, Mr. Ashcroft issued a directive saying doctors who
dispensed controlled substances were at risk of having their
registrations revoked because those prescriptions were not for a
legitimate medical purpose. The directive reversed a 1998
determination by Attorney General Janet Reno, which said the federal
government would not pursue Oregon doctors who complied with the
assisted suicide law.

Oregon sued the federal government after the directive was issued. It
asked the court to prohibit enforcement of the directive, a request
the court granted yesterday.

Eli D. Stutsman, a Portland lawyer who represented a doctor and a
pharmacist in the case, said the directive, if enforced, would have
had serious consequences for his clients. ``For both individuals, it
would have meant the end of their professional practices,'' Mr.
Stutsman said.

The decision by Judge Robert Jones, who was appointed to the bench by
the first President Bush, said Mr. Ashcroft ignored a promise to
Attorney General Hardy Myers of Oregon that he would consider the
state's views. Before issuing the directive, Judge Jones wrote, Mr.
Ashcroft ``did not consult with Oregon public officials, provide
notice to any of them or to the Oregon general public, or provide
opportunity for any public comment anywhere.''

The judge left open the question of whether Congress itself could
pass a law overriding a state's determination of what constitutes a
legitimate medical practice. But, he wrote, there is no indication in
any federal statute, including the drug law, ``that Congress
delegated to federal prosecutors the authority to define what
constitutes legitimate medical practices.''

Mr. Ashcroft's directive, Judge Jones wrote, was the result of an
effort by Congressional leaders ``to get through the administrative
door what they could not get through the Congressional door, seeking
refuge with the newly appointed attorney general whose ideology
matched their views.''

Nicholas W. van Aelstyn represented nine terminally ill patients in
the case. Five of them have since died, Mr. van Aelstyn said, adding,
``Two of them availed themselves of the law, and the other three were
comforted to know they could have.''

Judge Jones declined to certify the case as a class action but ruled
that additional patients might be added as plaintiffs later. That
ruling appeared to address the fear that the original plaintiffs
would not live to see the conclusion of the litigation.

Oregon voters approved the law, the Death with Dignity Act, in 1994,
and it has since survived many attacks, including a constitutional
challenge in the courts, a voter initiative to repeal it and failed
legislation in Congress, supported by Mr. Ashcroft when he was a
Missouri senator.

Mr. van Aelstyn was critical of the way the federal government
attacked the Oregon law, saying, ``Attorney General Ashcroft
attempted to do by executive fiat what he was twice unable to do as a
U.S. Senator.''

Dr. Greg Hamilton, a spokesman for Physicians for Compassionate Care,
which opposes assisted suicide laws, said that the decision ignored a
need for national standards in this area. ``Assisted suicide is not a
legitimate medical purpose in Oregon or anywhere in the world.''

Judge Jones emphasized that ``opposition to assisted suicide may be
fully justified, morally, ethically, religiously or otherwise.'' But,
he wrote, such opposition ``does not permit a federal statute to be
manipulated from its true meaning, even to satisfy a worthy goal.''