DEFENSE OF LAW IGNORED ITS EFFECTS

Dr. Jerry Patt castigated Attorney General John Ashcroft for his action
prohibiting the use of federally controlled drugs for assisted suicide
(column,Herald-Tribune), Nov. 23). But he conveniently left out a series of
facts.

On Nov. 5, 1997, President Clinton's drug enforcement administrator, Thomas
Constantine, announced that since assisted suicide is not a legitimate
medical procedure, prescribing a controlled substance with the intent of
assisting a suicide violates the federal Controlled Substance Act. Attorney
General Janet Reno ignored the determination and issued an administrative
decision allowing controlled substances to be used by physicians for
assisted suicide only in Oregon.

A bill (supported by the American Medical Association) that would have
overturned Reno's ruling passed the House in October 1999 and was favorably
reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but was prevented from coming
to the Senate floor by a filibuster threat by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.

Dr. Patt listed some of the provisions of the Oregon law that permits
assisted suicide, including that the patient must be terminally ill and
that two doctors must agree that the patient has less than six months to
live. What Dr. Patt omitted is what has actually happened in Oregon.

To date, an estimated 70 individuals have been "assisted." Articles
published in The Oregonian, the New England Journal of Medicine and The
Weekly Standard provide information on the initial 40. None of the 40
individuals so "assisted" were either terminally ill or in "intractable
pain." At least five had been rejected for "assistance" by two physicians,
so they, or their relatives, contacted suicide advocacy groups who referred
them to "death doctors" who "assisted" them.

Ray Shumard, Ph.D, Sarasota