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." 

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