546US2
Unit: $U18
[09-04-08 12:21:03] PAGES PGT: OPIN
Cite as: 546 U. S. 243 (2006)
249
Opinion of the Court
prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide, notwithstanding a state law per mitting the procedure. As the Court has observed, “Ameri cans are engaged in an earnest and profound debate about the morality, legality, and practicality of physician-assisted suicide.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 735 (1997). The dispute before us is in part a product of this political and moral debate, but its resolution requires an in quiry familiar to the courts: interpreting a federal statute to determine whether executive action is authorized by, or otherwise consistent with, the enactment. In 1994, Oregon became the first State to legalize assisted suicide when voters approved a ballot measure enacting the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (ODWDA). Ore. Rev. Stat. § 127.800 et seq. (2003). ODWDA, which survived a 1997 ballot measure seeking its repeal, exempts from civil or criminal liability state-licensed physicians who, in compliance with the specific safeguards in ODWDA, dispense or pre scribe a lethal dose of drugs upon the request of a terminally ill patient. The drugs Oregon physicians prescribe under ODWDA are regulated under a federal statute, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA or Act). 84 Stat. 1242, as amended, 21 U. S. C. § 801 et seq. The CSA allows these particular drugs to be available only by a written prescription from a registered physician. In the ordinary course the same drugs are pre scribed in smaller doses for pain alleviation. A November 9, 2001, Interpretive Rule issued by the At torney General addresses the implementation and enforce ment of the CSA with respect to ODWDA. It determines that using controlled substances to assist suicide is not a legitimate medical practice and that dispensing or prescrib ing them for this purpose is unlawful under the CSA. The Interpretive Rule’s validity under the CSA is the issue before us.
