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“USING FEDERALLY CONTROLLED DRUGS FOR ASSISTED SUICIDE” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S12492-S12494 on Oct. 14, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
USING FEDERALLY CONTROLLED DRUGS FOR ASSISTED SUICIDE
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Texas. I want to make a couple of comments in regard to the legislation that my colleague and friend, Senator Wyden, alluded to dealing with assisted suicide.
Mr. President, I introduced legislation to correct a mistake that Attorney General Reno made in June of this year when she overruled the Drug Enforcement Act and its interpretation that controlled substances could not be used for assisted suicide.
Let me make sure that everybody understands the picture of this. The Controlled Substance Act is a Federal law. It is not a State law; it is a Federal law. It is a Federal law that controls very strong drugs--
drugs that are illegal, drugs that can kill, drugs that are very addictive. They are controlled by Federal law. They can't be used except for legitimate medical purposes. That is what is defined in the Federal law in the Controlled Substance Act. They can only be used for legitimate medical purposes.
What constitutes a legitimate medical purpose? History has it that a legitimate medical purpose is, or can be, the alleviation of pain, to reduce pain, give comfort. It can be used for palliative care, but it is never--let me restate this--the Drug Enforcement Agency, which is in charge of enforcing this act, has never been used for assisted suicide. These drugs are strong drugs. If they are abused, used in heavy quantities, they kill people.
Unfortunately, some people want to use these drugs for assisted suicide. The Drug Enforcement Administrator, Mr. Constantine, a year ago, in November, wrote a letter to Congress and said that assisted suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my statement a letter from Mr. Constantine, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, be printed in the Record.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the letter says they have reviewed it, and assisted suicide is never a legitimate medical purpose. These drugs can only be used for a legitimate medical purpose.
The State of Oregon, by referendum, passed a law that says assisted suicide is OK. They had a couple of them. The State of Oregon can do what it wants, but that doesn't overturn Federal law. What if the State of Massachusetts said they were going to legalize heroin? That is a controlled substance. Does that make it legal? No. There is a reason why we have a Federal law dealing with these very strong drugs, and it is called the Controlled Substance Act. And just because one State has a referendum or petition or the legislature passes a bill, it doesn't overturn Federal drug law, period.
For some unknown reason, the Attorney General--and I still don't know why--gave one of the most absurd rulings in June, where she said, well, we still believe we have control of the Federal Controlled Substance Act, so assisted suicide is illegal for some States, except for those which have legalized it. Now, that is an absurd conclusion. I guess if you take that to its conclusion, any State can do whatever they want on these substances. That is absurd. Why have a Federal law? Why have a Federal law in any way, shape, or form.
Now we have several States--and Oregon is the pioneer in this--like Michigan and other States that are saying they want assisted suicide. I just beg to differ. I don't think that should be the purpose. The whole purpose of these drugs is to alleviate pain. For those organizations that say we are not sure if we support this bill because maybe it would have a chilling impact on pain, that is false. They haven't read the bill. If they want us to help write it in a stronger way--we put very clearly in the bill that these drugs can be used to alleviate pain. We encourage use of these drugs for the alleviation of pain, for palliative care. But they are licensed by the Federal Government and should not be used to kill people. They should not be used for assisted suicide. These are federally controlled drugs.
Are we going to give that kind of license? What happens if somebody does it? Tradition has it and history has had it that the Drug Enforcement Agency, if somebody misuses these drugs--one, they have to get a Federal license to distribute the drug, and if they misuse them, they lose that license. I think it is only appropriate to do so. They should not have the ability to distribute these drugs if they are going to use these drugs for assisted suicide.
So I say to my colleagues and anybody who has an interest in this that I want to work this out. I met with the Secretary of Health and Human Services today, Secretary Shalala, and we talked about this. We need to make sure that these drugs can be used for palliative care. We also need to make sure that they are controlled by the Federal Government. They should not be used for assisted suicide.
Mr. President, let me make a couple of general comments. This is about this administration, and it is about life in general, or maybe their lack of respect for life.
On two or three issues, I think this administration seems quite bent on devaluating life. I am talking about unborn children, where the administration has been eagerly trying to bring forth the distribution of RU486, an abortion pill that aborts fetuses up to 9 or 10 weeks, where there is a beating heart; they want to legalize that. There wasn't a pharmaceutical company in the country that wanted to make the drug, and the administration bent over backwards trying to recruit this drug coming into the country.
Now, you find the administration, through the Attorney General, coming up with a ruling that is totally contrary to the Drug Enforcement Agency's history of controlling controlled substances and saying, oh, well, we think assisted suicide is OK. Even though the President of the United States says he is against it, his administration and the Attorney General say maybe it is OK if the State says it is even though the drugs are controlled by the Federal Government. So you have the administration recruiting people to bring in abortion drugs for young people--an administration that wants to fund and subsidize abortion for unborn children, and then an administration now that, through the Attorney General's ruling, says we think these drugs that have been controlled by the Federal Government, under Federal law--we think it is OK if States want to legalize the use of these federally controlled drugs for assisted suicide. I don't think that makes sense.
I think it is pathetic when you think that the Federal Government's purpose should be to protect people, and they are actually trying to bring in drugs that will kill unborn children. And, then, also at the same time, ``Oh, yes. You can use these very strong drugs to kill senior citizens.'' It is hard to believe that they would take that position. That is the position of this administration. They are wrong. Hopefully, this Congress will vote.
I might mention that this is not the first issue that we have had with this. We passed legislation in the last Congress. We passed it unanimously through the Senate. It was my bill, or my language, that said no Federal funds were to be used for assisted suicide. Now we have people saying, ``Well, we want to use Federal drugs for assisted suicide.'' I think not.
We are going to vote on it. We are going to have significant debate on it. I look forward to that debate. I regret we are out of time to get a significant debate on it this year.
I look forward to working with my colleague from Oregon. I understand trying to represent one's State. I believe very strongly in States rights. But I don't believe so strongly in States rights that if the State of Oklahoma wanted to legalize heroin, or other controlled substances--I don't think that supersedes Federal law.
I would tell my colleague from Oregon that if the State of Oklahoma said, ``We think we want to legalize assisted suicide and have it be public,'' I say that is fine, you can do it with any drug that is controlled by the State, but not drugs controlled by the Federal Government, because we don't want Federal Government policy to be that we are going to basically acquiesce in assisted suicide. That should not be Federal policy.
Again, there is a Federal Controlled Substance Act. It is not State. The State could do whatever they want. But not with Federal law, not with Federal drugs, not with the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which controls the licenses and controls the use of these substances. The act is written OK. The act says these substances can only be used for legitimate medical purposes. I agree with that. If anybody thinks that legitimate medical purpose is assisted suicide, I disagree with that. That is not in the law. The Attorney General's reading of the law is totally contrary to that of the Drug Enforcement Administration. I believe she is wrong.
We will give all Members of this body a chance to vote on it in the not-too-distant future--if not this Congress, certainly the next Congress.
I thank my colleagues, particular my colleague from Texas, for allowing me to proceed to respond to my colleague from Oregon.
I yield the floor.
U.S. Department of Justice,
Drug Enforcement Administration,
Washington, DC, November 5, 1997.Hon. Henry J. Hyde,House of Representatives,Washington, DC.
Dear Congressman Hyde: Thank you for your letter of July 29, 1997. In that letter, you requested the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) view as to ``whether delivering, distributing, dispensing, prescribing, filling a prescription, or administering a controlled substance with the deliberate intent of assisting in a suicide would violate the Controlled Substance Act (CSA), applicable regulations, rulings, or other federal law subject to DEA enforcement, notwithstanding the enactment of a state law such as Oregon's Measure 16 which rescinds state penalties against such prescriptions for patients with a life expectancy of less than six months.''
I apologize for the delay in responding to you. As you know, the CSA authorizes DEA to revoke the registration of physicians who dispense controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose. Historically, DEA's experience with the phrase ``without a legitimate medical purpose'' has focused on cases involving physicians who have provided controlled substances to drug addicts and abusers. The application of this phrase to cases involving physician-assisted suicide presented DEA with a new issue to review.
Since receiving your inquiry, my staff has carefully reviewed a number of cases, briefs, law review articles and state laws relating to physician-assisted suicide, including the documents referenced in your letter. In addition, my staff has conducted a thorough review of prior administrative cases in which physicians have dispensed controlled substances for other than a ``legitimate medical purpose.'' Based on that review, we are persuaded that delivering, dispensing or prescribing a controlled substance with the intent of assisting a suicide would not be under any current definition a ``legitimate medical purpose.'' As a result, the activities that you described in your letter to us would be, in our opinion, a violation of the CSA.
Because physician-assisted suicide would be a new and different application of the CSA, a number of issues remain unresolved. For example, suspicious or unnatural deaths require a medico-legal investigation. The first priority in such an investigation would be a comprehensive forensic inquiry by a state or local law enforcement agency, which is traditionally supported by the efforts of a medical examiner, forensic pathologist, and/or coroner. At the conclusion of this stage of the inquiry, the evidence often is submitted to a grand jury or similar process for a determination of potential criminal liability of the person who assisted in the death.
This initial determination as to the cause of death is not DEA's responsibility. Rather, DEA would have to rely on the evidence supplied to us by state and local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. If the information or evidence presented to DEA indicates that a physician has delivered, distributed, dispensed, prescribed or administered a controlled substance with the deliberate intent of assisting in a suicide, then DEA could initiate revocation proceedings on the grounds that the physician has acted ``without a legitimate medical purpose.''
In addition to moving to revoke a physician's registration for dispensing controlled substances ``without a legitimate medical purpose,'' please also be aware that the CSA provides a number of other grounds upon which DEA might revoke the registration of a physician who assisted in a suicide. For example, DEA will revoke the registration of any physician whose state license to practice medicine has been revoked for assisting suicide. Similarly, DEA has authority to revoke the registration of any physician whose acts in assisting a suicide result in a conviction under state controlled substances laws.
DEA must examine the facts on a case-by-case basis to determine whether a physician's actions conflict with the CSA. If the facts indicate that a physician has acted as set forth in your letter, however, then DEA would have a statutory basis to initiate revocation proceedings.
I trust that this response addresses your inquiry. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Constantine,
Administrator.
Mr. GRAMM addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Wyoming has cleared a bill. Knowing how hard it is in the waning hours to do that, without losing my right to the floor and my full time when he is finished, I would like to yield him 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. THOMAS. Thank you, very much.
I thank the Senator from Texas. I have several bills that will be concluded.
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