Ashcroft Gives Docs A Bitter Pill

By Margot Roosevelt

The Bush Administration's effort to kill Oregon's "Death with Dignity" law, allowing assisted suicide, is igniting resistance in other states. Doctors don't want law-enforcement officers looking over their shoulders--and second-guessing their intentions--as they minister to the dying. Although Attorney General John Ashcroft's directive states that the Drug Enforcement Administration does not foresee an "increase in investigative activity...outside of Oregon," even medical groups historically opposed to euthanasia are denouncing the potential intrusion. Dr. Warren Jones, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, called the move a "major travesty" that will encourage physicians to curb the use of pain medications lest their bedside manner be misinterpreted.

Last week the American Pain Federation, a coalition of medical and patient groups, shot off a letter to the DEA demanding that field agents avoid investigations that could "inhibit" doctors from prescribing opiates such as morphine. Though Oregon's is the only state law that allows prescriptions of lethal medicine for terminally ill patients (there have been 70 assisted suicides in four years), 22 states have passed laws to encourage aggressive treatment of intractable pain. "Knowing I could choose when and how to die has given me peace," says Barbara Oskamp, 70, a Portland retiree who suffers from a brain tumor. "I don't think Ashcroft understands how bad pain can be." The debate is far from over. A federal judge has blocked Ashcroft's order until Nov. 20. A lengthy court battle is then likely over whether the DEA can go after physicians' licenses under the federal Controlled Substances Act. The constitutional issue: does the state or Federal Government control medical practice?

--By Margot Roosevelt