They're Dying in Oregon

[firefox]

This article is about the Gonzales v Oregon case before the Supreme Court- http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread21167.shtml

Oregon -- Some Supreme Court cases have odd or long-winded names that have nothing to do with what they're remembered for. The case heard this morning, however, is satisfyingly direct. It's called Gonzales v. Oregon, and it pits a state's power to let doctors help terminally ill patients die against the attorney general's power to stop them. It's all life and death—no fun, no games—in the first major case for the term and for Chief Justice John Roberts.

In 1994 and then again in 1997, Oregon voters passed the Death With Dignity Act, which allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of legal but regulated drugs to dying Oregonians who ask for them.

John Ashcroft, who was then a senator, asked Janet Reno, who was then Clinton's attorney general, to stop the Oregon doctors. Reno declined. In 1998 and 1999, Ashcroft introduced two bills in Congress that would have explicitly scuttled Death With Dignity. Both bills failed.

Then Ashcroft became President Bush's attorney general. In 2001, he announced that the federal Controlled Substances Act—passed by Congress in 1970 to "conquer drug abuse" and control the trafficking of legal and illegal drugs—gave him the power to revoke the licenses of doctors who assisted suicide with a prescription drug. The doctors could also be criminally prosecuted. When Ashcroft made his move, Oregon squawked its way to court. (That's why the name of today's case could be improved on a bit—it should really be called Ashcroft v. Oregon.)

[BlueJac]

1. one more post...

Leave Oregon alone.....they can run their own state!

[HawkerHurricane]

2. Don't be silly.

State's Rights only apply to conservative states against a liberal controled Federal Government.

Since the Feds are currently conservative, there is no need for state's rights.

[PsN2Wind]

3. Like the majority of people in Oregon

I voted for the "Death with Dignity" act when it was presented to the people of Oregon the first time. AND like an even greater majority I voted FOR it a second time after the state legislature overturned the will of the people. Now those strong advocates of "states rights" in Washington want to abolish it.