X-Message-Number: 17861
Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 07:14:11 -0700
From: David Brandt-Erichsen <>
Subject: Ashcroft overturns Oregon law

Reuters news agency is reporting:

Federal Doctor-Assisted Suicide Policy Reversed
Last Updated: November 06, 2001 04:42 PM ET

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reversing the policy of his predecessor who
supported the nation's first assisted suicide law, Attorney General
John Ashcroft said on Tuesday that doctors may not prescribe lethal
doses of federally controlled substances to terminally ill patients.

Overturning the policy adopted by Attorney General Janet Reno in
1998, Ashcroft sided with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),
which had long argued that doctors who prescribe drugs under Oregon's
assisted-suicide law could lose their licenses to write
prescriptions.

Reno had rejected the DEA position, but Ashcroft said the DEA had
been correct.

"I have concluded that the DEA's original reading of the (law) --
that controlled substances may not be dispensed to assist suicide --
was correct," Ashcroft said in a memo to Asa Hutchinson, the DEA
administrator.

Ashcroft, however, said controlled substances may be used to manage
pain.

"Pain management, rather than assisted suicide, has long been
recognized as a legitimate medical purpose justifying physicians'
dispensing of controlled substances," he said.

"There are important medical, ethical and legal distinctions between
intentionally causing a patient's death and providing sufficient
dosages of pain medication necessary to eliminate or alleviate pain,"
Ashcroft said.

While physicians are licensed by the states to practice medicine, the
DEA registers doctors to prescribe drugs and the agency is
responsible for enforcing the federal controlled substances law.

Ashcroft based his decision on a Supreme Court ruling on May 14 that
there was no exception in the federal drug law for the medical use of
marijuana and that federal law may not be overridden by the
legislative decisions of individual states.

The high court ruled that California cannabis clubs may not legally
distribute marijuana as a "medical necessity" for seriously ill
patients. The high court refused to carve out a "medical necessity"
exception from the federal law that prohibits the distribution of
marijuana as an illegal drug.

"I hereby determine that assisting suicide is not a 'legitimate
medical purpose' within the meaning of (the law) and that
prescribing, dispensing or administering federally controlled
substances to assist suicide violates" federal law, Ashcroft said.

He said there was no change in DEA policy in states other than
Oregon.

The Oregon law specifies that physicians may use medications, but not
lethal injections, to help a terminally ill patient commit suicide.
Two doctors must agree that the patient has no more than six months
to live and is mentally competent.

=====================
This message from Arizonans for Death with Dignity
www.hemlockarizona.com
David Brandt-Erichsen, webmaster 

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