X-Message-Number: 8983 Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 14:29:56 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Oregon update from ASSOCIATED PRESS (Jan 9/98 4:09 AM EST) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- DOCTORS' GROUP TAKES PHARMACY BOARD RULE TO COURT PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon Medical Association has asked the state appeals court to rule invalid a pharmacy board requirement that doctors who write life-ending prescriptions specify the prescription's purpose in writing. Doctors argue that the Oregon Board of Pharmacy rule would breach doctor-patient confidentiality and expose doctors to possibly losing their medical licenses. On Tuesday, the OMA asked the Oregon Court of Appeals to erase the rule. Voters approved Oregon's assisted suicide law in 1994, but it was held up by legal challenges until recently. Voters reaffirmed the law last Nov. 4, and two days later, the pharmacy board approved the emergency rule. Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law permits physicians to prescribe lethal medication for adult, mentally competent patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and have less than six months to live. The law permits doctors and other health care workers to decline to assist in a suicide if it violates their personal ethics. Pharmacists say they, too, should have the opportunity to refuse to participate in assisted suicides by filling prescriptions. The law doesn't specify how pharmacists would know if they were filling a lethal prescription. Doctors fear that complying with the pharmacy rule would identify physicians participating in assisted suicides to 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, which the administrator says would include physician-assisted suicide. The U.S. Justice Department, which oversees the DEA, is conducting its own review. The pharmacy board's rule would be in effect until mid-May unless the Court of Appeals agrees with the OMA. If the court lets the rule stand, the pharmacy board would have to hold public hearings in order to make the rule permanent. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8983