Page:United States Reports 546.pdf/458

 546US2

Unit: $U18

[09-04-08 12:21:03] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 546 U. S. 243 (2006)

247

Syllabus allocation of powers for enforcing the CSA’s limited objectives. The Government’s contention that the terms “medical” or “medicine” refer to a healing or curative art, and thus cannot embrace the intentional hastening of a patient’s death, rests on a reading of 21 U. S. C. § 829(a)’s prescription requirement without the illumination of the rest of the stat­ ute. Viewed in context, that requirement is better understood as en­ suring that patients use controlled substances under a doctor’s super­ vision so as to prevent addiction and recreational abuse. To read prescriptions for assisted suicide as “drug abuse” under the CSA is dis­ cordant with the phrase’s consistent use throughout the Act, not to men­ tion its ordinary meaning. The Government’s interpretation of the pre­ scription requirement also fails under the objection that the Attorney General is an unlikely recipient of such broad authority, given the Secre­ tary’s primacy in shaping medical policy under the CSA and the Act’s otherwise careful allocation of decisionmaking powers. Pp. 269–275. 368 F. 3d 1118, afﬁrmed. Kennedy, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Stevens, O’Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., ﬁled a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, J., joined, post, p. 275. Thomas, J., ﬁled a dissenting opinion, post, p. 299.

Solicitor General Clement argued the cause for petition­ ers. With him on the briefs were Assistant Attorney Gen­ eral Keisler, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Katsas, Douglas HallwardDriemeier, Mark B. Stern, and Jonathan H. Levy. Robert M. Atkinson, Senior Assistant Attorney General of Oregon, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief for respondent State of Oregon were Hardy Myers, At­ torney General, Peter Shepherd, Deputy Attorney General, and Mary H. Williams, Solicitor General. Nicholas W. van Aelstyn, Aaron S. Jacobs, and Kathryn L. Tucker ﬁled a brief for Patient-Respondents. Eli D. Stutsman ﬁled a brief for respondents Peter A. Rasmussen, M. D., et al.* Center for Law and Justice by Jay Alan Sekulow, Colby M. May, James M. Henderson, Sr., Walter M. Weber, Thomas P. Monaghan, and Charles E. Rice; for Americans United for Life by Nikolas T. Nikas; for the Catho­
 * Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were ﬁled for the American