US campaigners oppose assisted suicide safeguards on telemedicine consultations

US campaigners are opposing new measures on dispensing dangerous drugs that would add safeguards to assisted suicide laws.

The DEA wants to introduce rules requiring in-person consultation with a doctor before controlled substances are prescribed.

At least one doctor would have to meet with a patient in person before a prescription of drugs is signed off, to ensure that the patient is eligible.

It comes in a context where many American states are grappling with severe problems arising from the dispensing of addictive opiate drugs.

Although not targeted at state legislation governing assisted suicide, the federal rules could bar doctors from approving 'assisted deaths' online.

Critics of assisted suicide believe this would be a positive move, as online consultations increase the potential for abuse and mistakes to occur.

However, assisted death campaigners Death With Dignity have mounted a campaign opposing the rules, favouring a more lax approach.

Wesley J. Smith, a writer on bioethics, questions why groups would oppose a "reasonable rule" that would "protect patients".

He comments: "We already see what I call 'doctor shopping' in many assisted suicides. If a suicidal patient’s own doctor refuses to prescribe lethally high medicine doses — whether for conscience reasons or because the physician does not believe the patient qualifies for hastened death — the patient can obtain a referral from an advocacy group to a doctor willing to prescribe, even outside their specialty or field of expertise."

He adds: "Ensuring one personal meeting with a doctor who is going to prescribe death would seem to be a minimal protection against abuse if there ever was one. But assisted-suicide activists only pretend to believe in limitations. What they really seek is assisted suicide (and eventually, lethal-injection euthanasia) without meaningful restrictions. Those with eyes to see, let them see."