STATE LAWYERS PRESS DEFENSE OF SUICIDE LAW

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft overstepped his authority and
that of the federal government when he moved to derail Oregon's
doctor-assisted suicide law, lawyers for the state argued Friday.

Federal lawyers, meanwhile, argue that Oregon has no legal standing
to challenge Ashcroft's Nov. 6 directive, and that the attorney
general has legal authority to decide how federal drug law will be
enforced.

The arguments were made in briefs filed Friday in U.S. District Court
in Portland in preparation for a hearing Tuesday before federal Judge
Robert Jones.

Jones issued a temporary restraining order against Ashcroft on Nov.
8, two days after the nation's top law enforcement officer authorized
federal drug agents to investigate and suspend the federal licenses
of doctors who prescribe federally controlled drugs to help
terminally ill patients end their lives.

State Attorney General Hardy Myers and his lawyers will ask Jones on
Tuesday to grant a preliminary injunction - in effect, to put
Ashcroft's order on ice until a lawsuit against the federal
government is decided. The suit was filed by Myers and joined by four
dying patients, a doctor and a pharmacist.

The case is expected to spend three to four years in the courts and
likely will land before the U.S. Supreme Court, said George Eighmey,
executive director of Compassion in Dying, an Oregon group that
supports doctor-assisted suicide.

Ashcroft's directive, in which he found that assisted suicide is not
a "legitimate medical purpose" under the federal Controlled
Substances Act, effectively blocked Oregon's voter-approved law, the
only one of its kind in the nation.

It sparked an uproar of criticism from doctors' groups, many of the
state's politicians and groups that support the law. They said the
policy stomped on the will of Oregon voters and would discourage
doctors from aggressively treating pain in dying patients.

Religious and anti-abortion groups hailed the new policy, noting that
Ashcroft specifically said that pain management is protected and
promoted as proper medical treatment.

To prevail Tuesday, Oregon's lawyers have to show first that they
have a legitimate shot at ultimately winning the case, and second,
that irreparable harm will occur if the injunction is not granted.

"Hopefully the judge will agree that in terms of physician-assisted
suicide, not granting the injunction would be irreparable harm," said
Kevin Neely, spokesman for the state Justice Department. "The
injunction is critical for the citizens of Oregon because the harm
done is harm we will not be able to change."

In the brief filed Friday, Oregon's lawyers argued that Congress did
not intend to give the U.S. attorney general authority to decide
whether a state's medical practices were legitimate - and even if it
wanted to, Congress has no constitutional authority to regulate the
medical practices of Oregon doctors.

The brief filed by the U.S. Justice Department was not made available
Friday. Susan Dryden, the department's deputy director of public
affairs in Washington, D.C., did not return phone calls from The
Register-Guard.

In an earlier brief and in court, federal attorneys argued that the
greater harm would result if Ashcroft's order was put on hold because
Oregonians would continue to die from assisted suicide. Jones
rejected that argument, noting that, because Ashcroft's new policy
was based on a legal opinion dated June 29, the matter must not be
that urgent to the Bush administration.

The federal attorneys also argue that Oregon has no standing to
challenge Ashcroft's directive.

They say the Controlled Substances Act authorized the attorney
general to write and enforce any rules necessary to enforce the law.
And they say that Congress in 1984 amended the law to strengthen the
ability of the Drug Enforcement Administration to control
prescription drugs.