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.