cription from a doctor today, and wait the required 15 days. After the waiting period, during which patients can rescind their request at any time, they are free to take the drugs. Oregon Board of Medical Examiners will oversee physician compliance with the law,patients or families with concerns can contact the board,and a 25-member task force of health and ethics experts will decide some of the policy questions that will guide the state's oversight of the new law. Several experts expect there will be further guidelines to carry out this new policy.15Sooner or later, discussions about euthanasia and assisted suicide in the United States turn to the situation in the Netherlands. Although euthanasia still is a criminal offense there, punishable by up to 12 years in prison, it is increasingly tolerated in practice. Dutch physicians who put hopelessly ill patients to death after being asked to do so are not prosecuted if they follow certain guidelines formulated by the courts.16In a series of Dutch court cases decided between 1973 and 1984, two conditions were deemed essential for legitimizing euthanasia. First, the patient must make the request at his own initiative, repeatedly and explicitly expressing his wish to die. Second, the patient must be suffering from severe physical or mental pain, with no prospect of recovery. Since 1984, Dutch courts have added a third condition--that a physician intending to perform euthanasia first consult a colleague to confirm the accuracy of the diagnosis, verify the planned means of bringing about death and ascertain that all legal requirements are being met. Some court cases have also cited as requirements the presence of an incurable disease or a demand that death by euthanasia not inflict unnecessary suffering on others.17Typically, a Dutch euthanasia patient is first given a shot of barbiturates, which causes unconsciousness within three to five seconds. A follow-up shot of curare produces death in ...
