X-Message-Number: 9858 Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1998 17:06:36 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: still more on Oregon (June 05/98 5:40 PM Eastern - abridged) --------------------------------------------------------------------- RENO WON'T BLOCK OREGON'S ASSISTED-SUICIDE LAW By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Janet Reno ruled Friday that federal drug agents cannot move against doctors who help terminally ill patients die under Oregon's landmark death-with-dignity law. Within hours, a bill to overrule her was introduced in Congress. Already rebuffed by the Supreme Court, opponents of physician-assisted suicide said they would turn to legislation. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., joined by James L. Oberstar, D-Minn., sponsored the first bill to explicitly ban drugs for assisted suicide. Only one other state is even near following Oregon's lead -- a Michigan group claims to have gathered enough signatures to put the issue on that state's ballot. And Reno warned that doctors in states with no assisted suicide law or even those in Oregon who ignore the law's safeguards could face federal penalties. But Reno concluded the law was designed to curb drug trafficking and abuse of stimulants, depressants and hallucinogens. "There is no evidence the Congress, in the Controlled Substances Act, intended to assign DEA the novel role of resolving (what the Supreme Court last year called) the `earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality and practicality of physician-assisted suicide,"' Reno wrote Rep. Hyde. "There is no evidence that Congress, in the CSA, intended to displace the states as the primary regulators of the medical profession, or to override a state's determination as to what constitutes legitimate medical practice." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9858