{
  "id": "RL33120",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
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      "id": 312400,
      "date": "2006-02-07",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-07T19:14:53.291029",
      "title": "Physician-Assisted Suicide and the Controlled Substances Act: Gonzales v. Oregon",
      "summary": "The state of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act (ODWDA) is the first and only state law in the\nnation\nthat legalizes physician-assisted suicide. The ODWDA permits Oregon physicians to prescribe a\nlethal dose of medication to mentally competent, terminally ill patients, who then may voluntarily\nelect to hasten their death.\n Under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), a federal law that regulates the legal and illicit\nmanufacture, distribution, and possession of drugs, a physician may prescribe controlled substances\nto patients only for a \"legitimate medical purpose.\" In 2001, then-U.S. Attorney General John\nAshcroft issued a memorandum in which he declared that physician-assisted suicide is not a\n\"legitimate medical purpose\" for prescribing federally controlled substances. The \"Ashcroft\nDirective\" potentially subjected Oregon doctors who prescribed drugs pursuant to the ODWDA to\ncriminal prosecution for violating the CSA and to a loss of the privilege to prescribe controlled\nsubstances.\n On November 7, 2001, the state of Oregon, an Oregon physician and pharmacist, and several\nterminally ill patients filed a lawsuit to prevent the enforcement of the Ashcroft Directive. A federal\ndistrict court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held the Directive invalid and\nunenforceable because Congress did not authorize the Attorney General to determine that\nphysician-assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose under the CSA. These courts\ndetermined that Congress did not intend for the CSA to override a state's traditional power to\nregulate the practice of medicine.\n Attorney General Ashcroft appealed the Ninth Circuit's decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. \nAlberto Gonzales had replaced John Ashcroft as Attorney General by the time the Court agreed to\nreview the case. On January 17, 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court in  Gonzales v. Oregon \naffirmed the\njudgment of the Ninth Circuit, ruling that the Directive is not entitled to the traditional judicial\ndeference customarily accorded to a federal agency's interpretation of a regulation or statute, and,\nfurthermore, that the Directive is unenforceable because the CSA does not authorize the Attorney\nGeneral to prohibit the distribution of federally controlled substances for the purposes of facilitating\nan individual's suicide.",
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    {
      "source": "University of North Texas Libraries Government Documents Department",
      "sourceLink": "https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs7671/",
      "id": "RL33120 2005-10-18",
      "date": "2005-10-18",
      "retrieved": "2005-11-02T15:25:53",
      "title": "Gonzales vs. Oregon",
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      "topics": [
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Medicine",
          "name": "Medicine"
        },
        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Federal-state relations",
          "name": "Federal-state relations"
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        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Gonzalez v. Oregon",
          "name": "Gonzalez v. Oregon"
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        {
          "source": "LIV",
          "id": "Assisted suicide",
          "name": "Assisted suicide"
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