Also on the ballot was a measure to allow the terminally ill to obtain lethal prescriptions for suicide.

Many more have obtained lethal prescriptions but have died of natural causes before taking the drugs.

Either way, state officials who receive notice of a lethal prescription then monitor death certificates until the patient's name turns up.

Through 2004, 325 people had obtained the lethal prescriptions, and 208 had used them.

But the doctor did not write the lethal prescription.

A study of cancer specialists found that 13.5 percent had written a lethal prescription.

The doctor has since written lethal prescriptions for two other patients, although neither has used them.

He added that the lethal prescriptions often have the paradoxical effect of allowing people with devastating illness to live.

Doctors have to wait 15 days before meeting the final request for a lethal prescription.

Dignity in the form of a lethal prescription that puts an end to agonizing pain is not suicide.