X-Message-Number: 8823 Date: Sat, 22 Nov 1997 20:56:15 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Oregon update Doctors, pharmacists meet to iron out protocol for prescriptions The Associated Press 11/22/97 6:49 PM Eastern PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Oregon doctors and pharmacists are moving closer to resolving a key issue stemming from the state's assisted-suicide law: how to fill prescriptions for life-ending medication in a way that protects both sides. Voters on Nov. 4 upheld the law allowing people with terminal illnesses and with less than six months to live to ask doctors to prescribe lethal pills. Two days later, the state pharmacy board passed an emergency rule requiring doctors to note the purpose of a life-ending prescription on the prescription blank itself. The rule was meant to give pharmacists the opportunity to refuse to fill such a prescription, but doctors worried that writing the purpose violates rules on patient confidentiality and could identify the doctor to anti-suicide protesters and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA's administrator has told Congress that the agency has the authority to revoke the certification of any doctor who prescribes a controlled substance for a nonlegitimate medical purpose, including it says, physician-assisted suicide. On Friday, in an informal meeting, two members of the Oregon Board of Pharmacy, President Joseph Schnabel and John Block, met with Dr. Chuck Hofmann, president of the Oregon Medical Association. James Kronenberg, assistant executive director of the OMA and one of several staff members who attended the Friday meeting, said the OMA doctors' association will work with the Oregon State Pharmacists Association to develop guidelines for physician and pharmacist behavior under the law. Kronenberg told The Oregonian that the guidelines would follow three broad lines of action: -- The physician could fill out the prescription according to the current emergency rule. -- The physician could apply to the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners to become a so-called dispensing physician. The designation would allow the doctor not only to write a prescription but also to fill it himself from his own inventory of drugs. -- The physician, with the patient's permission, could contact the pharmacist by telephone, explain the situation and get the pharmacist's verbal agreement to fill the prescription. The physician then would deliver the prescription to the pharmacist, receive the medication and dispense it directly to the patient. Meanwhile, pharmacies are on their own in deciding how to implement the law. In Eugene, the Tiffany's Drug Stores chain told its pharmacists not to fill any prescriptions for assisted suicide until the legal cloud over the issue has lifted. Dale B. Engel, a pharmacist and president of Tiffany's, said the current review of the law by the U.S. Department of Justice and the nagging questions of liability prompted his decision. "We'll reconsider once it's clarified," Engel said. In contrast, Fred Meyer Inc. told its pharmacists that filling an assisted-suicide prescription would be left to individual discretion. Robert E. Boley, a Fred Meyer spokesman, said the company reaffirmed a policy it established last year. Two other pharmacy chains, Safeway Inc. and Rite Aid Corp., which operates PayLess Drug Stores, said they have made no decisions pending further clarification of the law. In another development, a dying Oregon woman has sought advice from the founder of the Hemlock Society on whether to take advantage of the new law, although she made no decision. Derek Humphry, a 20-year crusader for physician-assisted suicide, said the woman suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative illness commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Humphry said he did not advocate a particular course of action for her. "My job is to inform people what the facts are." He said the woman and her family said they would think about it and added that they "might not take advantage of it." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8823