House Panel Approves Bill Barring Use of Controlled Substances as Suicide Aid

A bill to bar the use of controlled substances for physician-assisted suicide was approved Tuesday by a House committee.

The measure by Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.) would discourage--if not prevent--Oregon patients from using the state’s first-in-the-nation law allowing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live.

All 15 patients who died under Oregon’s law during its first full year in 1998 used controlled substances to take their lives.

The proposal “will help protect vulnerable people in this country from the misuse of controlled substances,” Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.) said before the Judiciary Committee’s 16-8 party-line vote.

Under the proposal, physicians who intentionally used controlled substances to cause death would face revocation of their licenses to prescribe the drugs.

Committee Democrats, who opposed the bill, said it would discourage pain treatment because doctors would fear the loss of those licenses and criminal prosecution if patients died unintentionally.

Democrats also noted that Oregon voters have twice affirmed the law, saying Congress shouldn’t intrude on states’ rights.

“Here we have a state that worked long and hard to develop legislation . . . and yet we come in with a big brother attitude that we should overcome the Oregon law,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas).

The measure was written in response to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno’s announcement last year that federal drug agents will not try to prosecute or revoke the drug licenses of doctors who help terminally ill patients die under Oregon’s law.

Backers of Oregon’s law say Hyde’s bill and a Senate version by Majority Whip Don Nickles (R-Okla.) are poorly disguised attempts to overturn the state’s landmark law.