By David G. Savage Source: Newsday Washington -- The Supreme Court agreed today to hear the Bush administration's challenge to the nation's only right-to-die law, an Oregon measure that permits dying patients to seek lethal medication from their doctors. The justices said they would consider the administration's claim that Oregon's doctors violate the federal drug laws if they give their patients medication that will end their lives. There is no "legitimate medical purpose" for prescribing such drugs, said former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft in November, 2001, when he announced that the Bush administration would enter the case. He said that doctors who assist in such suicides should be punished by losing their privilege to write prescriptions. The court's announcement sets the stage for a showdown over the issue of physician-assisted suicide. The case of Gonzales vs. Oregon will be heard in the fall. The case also poses a test between federal power and states' rights, but with a twist. Conservatives such as Ashcroft have maintained that the federal government has the authority to determine the proper use of drugs, while the liberal-leaning U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Oregon last year, saying that states have traditionally regulated the practice of medicine. Oregon's Death with Dignity Act was first approved as a voter initiative in 1994 and reaffirmed by the voters in 1997. It permits adults who are suffering from an incurable disease to seek lethal medication if two doctors say the patient is likely to die within six months. The doctors must also confirm the patient is competent and acting voluntarily. Under the law, 171 people have ended their lives by taking the lethal medication. "Many patients are comforted by having the medication that gives them the choice to hasten their death. But it is used rarely," said Kathryn Tucker, a lawyer for Compassion in Dying in Portland, the group that sponsored the law. Congressional conservatives, led by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), urged federal action to block the Oregon law. But the Clinton administration's attorney general, Janet Reno, refused to intervene. She concluded that the state had set stringent rules to assure that only competent and dying patients could obtain the medication to end their lives. Soon after taking office in 2001, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft reversed Reno's stand-back policy. He announced that there was "no legitimate purpose" for prescribing medications that would lead to death. And he said that the Drug Enforcement Administration could strip doctors of their right to prescribe controlled substances if they gave patients medicine to end their lives. But a federal judge in Portland and the 9th Circuit Court, based in San Francisco, ruled that Ashcroft had exceeded his authority under federal law. These decisions effectively blocked federal authorities from interfering with Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law. In their appeal to the high court, the administration's lawyers argued that federal law permits the attorney general to "establish a single national standard" for the proper use of medications. The assisted suicide case is now the second before the high court in which the Bush administration is challenging West Coast voters on an issue of individual liberty and personal privacy. California's voters have approved a law that permits patients to use medical marijuana. The Bush administration appealed to the Supreme Court when the 9th Circuit ruled that federal agents may not raid the homes of patients who are growing marijuana for their own use. That case, Ashcroft vs. Raich, was heard in December. A decision is expected soon. From the Los Angeles Times Source: Newsday (NY) Author: David G. Savage, Times Staff Writer Published: February 22, 2005 Copyright: 2005 Newsday Inc. Contact: letters@newsday.com Website: http://www.newsday.com/ Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20268.shtml
free country free fucking country, do they have no fucking concept of this, or do they not care. just another law protecting us from ourselves. thank you Mr Man, for deciding whats "right".
By Stephen Henderson, Knight Ridder Newspapers Source: KRT Washington, D.C. -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday dealt a blow to the Bush administration's efforts to curb assisted suicide, saying a federal drug law can't be used to punish doctors who, under the state law of Oregon, help terminally ill patients end their lives. The ruling clears a legal morass surrounding the long-embattled Oregon law and paves the way for other states to consider assisted-suicide measures that involve physicians. It also makes clear a court majority believes executive power cannot be expanded by a president beyond limits set by Congress in some cases - a point that could carry added significance in an era of increasingly bold assertions of executive power by the Bush administration. "It's a reminder to the executive branch that they will be bound by a tight, lawyerly reading of a statute," said Marc Spindelman, who teaches law at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. "It may say something about how other claims of authority will be handled." The ruling might also inspire Congress, under pressure from groups opposed to assisted suicide, to pass a law that gives the Department of Justice more specific permission to combat assisted suicide. The court, by a 6-3 vote, said Congress clearly didn't intend to do that with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had declared in 2001 that the law implicitly permitted him to decide that assisted suicide wasn't a "legitimate medical purpose" and to prevent doctors from acting under the Oregon law. But Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said that declaration assumed "an authority that goes well beyond the Attorney General's statutory power." He noted that Ashcroft's interpretation "delegates to a single Executive officer the power to effect a radical shift of authority from the states to the federal government." Federal drug laws didn't "have this far-reaching intent to alter the federal-state balance," Kennedy said. The ruling drew pointed dissents from Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joining Scalia's opposition without explanation. Scalia said Ashcroft's reading of the law was reasonable and that the court's past decisions required deference to the executive branch to interpret Congress' intent in a particular statute. Thomas said the ruling didn't square with a 2004 high court ruling that permitted use of drug laws to regulate medical marijuana. Roberts' silent opposition to the ruling left no clues to his take on issues such as the scope of executive authority under federal drug laws and the balance between federal and state power. The case was the first high-profile one he'd heard and it was argued just days after he was confirmed as chief justice. Roberts left unexplained how this case differs in his view from a 1997 court ruling that said states should be free to decide how to handle end-of-life issues. Roberts praised that ruling at the time, saying it was important "not to have too narrow a view of protecting personal rights." The Oregon law has been a subject of dispute since the day it passed in 1994. It allows a team of doctors to determine when terminally ill patients can be given lethal doses of prescribed drugs. About 200 people have ended their lives under the law. The Clinton administration concluded in the late 1990s that it had no role in deciding the law's validity, and Congress was unable to muster the votes to attack it directly through legislation. When the Bush administration took over in 2001, though, the federal policy changed. Ashcroft announced that he read the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) differently from Clinton officials and that he would try to revoke the licenses of doctors who participated in the Oregon program. The state challenged Ashcroft's action, saying he had overstepped the bounds of the federal drug law and intruded into matters of medical practice standards, which are historically reserved to the states. Two lower courts sided with the state, and the Bush administration appealed to the Supreme Court. The case raised issues about the scope of executive power to interpret legislation, as well as the reach of the federal government into areas typically handled by states. The ruling largely avoided the federal-vs.-state issue and boiled down to a fine reading of how executive agencies interpret congressional legislation. Some court watchers said the justices may not have been as unified on the difficult federal power question and were in more agreement about the administrative law issue. Kennedy wrote that while the federal drug law gave the attorney general broad powers to help decide which drugs should be legal and under what circumstances, it doesn't grant authority to make unilateral medical decisions. "In the face of the CSA's silence on the practice of medicine generally and its recognition of state regulation of the medical profession, it is difficult to defend the Attorney General's declaration that the statute impliedly criminalizes physician-assisted suicide," he wrote. Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed. Scalia said Ashcroft's interpretation of the power that Congress gave him was a "perfectly valid" one and that it met the court's standards for deference to the executive branch. "The question before us is not whether Congress CAN do this, or even whether Congress SHOULD do this; but simply whether Congress HAS done this in the CSA," Scalia wrote. "I think there is no doubt that it has. If the term `LEGITIMATE medical purpose' has any meaning, it surely excludes the prescription of drugs to produce death." Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said Scalia's dissent is reflective of his longtime view that courts should defer to elected branches to determine the scope of authority defined in legislation. "Scalia is willing to let agencies interpret statutes in ways that expand their authority," he said. He said Roberts' decision to join Scalia's opinion "may indicate that he's somewhat sympathetic to Scalia's view of the relative role of courts versus agencies in construing statutes." Source: KRT (Wire) Author: Stephen Henderson, Knight Ridder Newspapers Published: January 17, 2006 Copyright: 2006 Knight Ridder Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread21489.shtml
I can't believe so many people are fighting about this shit...if you want to kill yourself then do it! Why the hell would you care whether it's legal or not?
the fight is about whether a doctor should be allowed to prescribe a lethal dose knowing that their patient will die. as I understand it, the court found that the federal government's drug enforcers don't have the right to decide what is or isn't medically sound - it's up to the medical authorities, and bows to states rights. I'm surprised that it comes to things like this - I just don't get how the government thinks it should be able to decide for a person that they have to live out the slow agonizing death of a terminal disease. There cannot possibly be grounds to take away that choice in the Constitution.
By Ashbel S. Green Source: Newhouse News Washington, D.C. -- Last year, the nation's highest court said that using marijuana to relieve pain violated the federal Controlled Substances Act. This week, the court said the same federal law could not be used to punish doctors who prescribe a lethal cocktail for terminally ill patients in Oregon. While the results might seem contradictory, taken together the rulings firmly establish the central purpose of the Controlled Substances Act: to combat illicit drug use and trafficking. "Marijuana was exactly the kind of thing that is at the heart of the Controlled Substances Act. Congress really wanted to seriously regulate this particular drug in all of its forms," said Robert L. Tsai, an assistant professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. "By contrast, it's hard to say -- and finally the court rejected the argument -- that the dispensing of certain drugs to ease one's death really goes to the heart of the Controlled Substances Act." More broadly, the two rulings referee a swirling power struggle among Congress, the executive branch and the states. In the marijuana case, the court said Congress' authority to regulate marijuana trumped laws in California and 10 other states that allow the drug's use for medical purposes. In the assisted suicide case, by contrast, the court said the federal executive -- the U.S. attorney general -- exceeded the power Congress had given him under the law. And that ruling, say several experts, could suggest how the court is leaning in other major executive-power cases coming down the pike, including the handling of enemy combatants and warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency. "It gets kind of dry and technical," Willamette University law professor Valerie J. Vollmar said about the assisted suicide case. "But I think the most interesting thing about it is this executive-power struggle that is going on." "The majority is saying, `Wait a minute, there are limits to what you, the attorney general, can do on behalf of the executive branch,"' Vollmar said. "The dissenters are saying you can do almost anything. That's a pretty extreme position. And I think it's of concern that Chief Justice Roberts signed onto the dissent." The two cases certainly have similarities: Both involved state ballot initiatives that allow the use of federally regulated drugs to treat pain and terminal illness. While multiple states have approved the medical use of marijuana, no states beside Oregon have adopted an assisted-suicide law. The key difference between the two cases: Congress explicitly outlawed any use of marijuana while the drugs prescribed to terminally ill patients -- secobarbital and pentobarbital -- have legal uses. The marijuana case came out of California, where state lawyers argued that Congress had exceeded its authority to regulate interstate commerce when it banned locally grown marijuana used for medical purposes. The court rejected the argument 6-3, with Sandra Day O'Connor, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas in dissent. Oregon won its case by the same vote, but most of the justices switched sides. And instead of hinging on the big-sweep question of Congress' constitutional authority, the Oregon case came down to the arcane rules of statutory construction and deference. In simple terms, if the Controlled Substances Act doesn't mention assisted suicide, should the courts defer to the attorney general's determination that it is not a legitimate medical use of drugs to help people die. "It's an administrative law geek's idea of heaven," said Orin S. Kerr, an associate professor at George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. "It's a very technical decision." And unlike the marijuana ruling, it does not end the debate. Nothing about Tuesday's ruling prohibits Congress from clearly giving the attorney general authority to prosecute doctors who prescribe drugs for assisted suicide. But if Congress outlaws assisted suicide, supporters expect to go back to court and point out other differences between the marijuana and assisted-suicide laws. The most obvious: Congress may be able to ban a substance such as marijuana, but is it beyond its authority to intrude on the traditional state determination of what is the legitimate practice of medicine? "If we ever are faced with that battle," said Mary H. Williams, Oregon's solicitor general, "I think there are a number of arguments." Ashbel S. Green is a staff writer for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore. Source: Newhouse News (D.C.) Author: Ashbel S. Green Published: January 20, 2006 Copyright: 2006 Newhouse News Service Contact: tonygreen@news.oregonian.com Website: http://www.newhousenews.com/ Link to article: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21502.shtml