For those on the front line...

"Rie-to-die Group Begins Campaign"

By KATHERINE PFLEGER
.c The Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) - A right-to-die group began a campaign Tuesday to derail
Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision to act against doctors who use
Oregon's one-of-a-kind law permitting physician-assisted suicide.

The Hemlock Society's campaign includes newspaper ads and letters to
politicians urging Congress to act or at least try to convince President Bush
to override his attorney general.

Ashcroft said this month that doctors who use federally controlled drugs to
help patients die, as permitted under Oregon's law, face suspension or
revocation of their licenses to prescribe the drugs. An Oregon judge has
temporarily blocked implementation of Ashcroft's decision.

The Denver-based group said Ashcroft's directive will have a chilling effect
on doctors nationwide, who will be reluctant to prescribe adequate pain
medication for fear a patient would take too much.

Among the society's members is Nelson Pritchett of Brighton, Mass., who is
dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. With the directive, he said he's lost hope
that his state, or the 48 others, will enact laws to help patients die
swiftly under a doctor's care.

``It is not suicide,'' Pritchett said from his wheelchair at a news
conference. ``I would like to hear it be called death by choice.''

Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group, says the society's fears of a
chilling effect are unfounded, because the Oregon law provides for
prescribing barbiturates to enable patients to kill themselves, not pain
medications such as morphine.

``We want to make clear that aggressive pain control is a legitimate medical
use of federally controlled substances,'' said Stephen Drake, research
analyst for Not Dead Yet. ``We also want to make it clear that active,
intentional killing is not.''

In a letter to the Oregon Medical Association this month, Ashcroft said
federal drug agents won't scrutinize doctors that prescribe regulated drugs
for pain. They will, however, obtain reports filed to Oregon health
authorities as required for each assisted suicide case, Ashcroft said.

The state law, twice approved by voters, allows doctors to help patients die
if they are mentally competent, adult state residents who have less than six
months to live. Since it took effect in October 1997, at least 70 people have
ended their lives.

On the Net: The Hemlock Society: http://www.hemlock.org

Not Dead Yet: http://www.notdeadyet.org

AP-NY-11-27-01 1713EST

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.