COMFORT FOR THE DYING

Regarding your article "Ashcroft Targets Suicide Doctors" [Nov. 7]:
Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision reversing the federal policy
toward Oregon's assisted-suicide law and basing it on last May's
unanimous Supreme Court ruling on medical marijuana signals that the
Bush Administration's so-called "compassionate conservatism" was just
a ruse.

Drug Enforcement Agency agents busting California medical marijuana
clinics and federal policies that keep this medicine from sick and
dying Americans intentionally inflicts needless suffering. If the sick
and dying can't take it any more, now the federal government won't let
doctors help them end it all. Certainly not compassionate, certainly
not respecting states' rights and definitely just plain mean.

It's time for the government to get out of doctor's offices and start
using all its resources to protect us from terrorists, not making life
harder for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

Gary Storck,

Madison, Wisc.