Coming this weekend for our subscribers, Colorado Politics takes a deep dive into the issue of medical aid in dying, the politics that shaped the law that took effect last December allowing mentally competent adults with six months or less to live to take a sedative and end their lives.

Six states and the District of Columbia allow medical aid in dying. Oregon was the first when it passed Death with Dignity Act in 1997, and most states, including Colorado, modeled their laws on Oregon’s.

The next year, 16 Oregonians used the law to end their lives. So far, an estimated 10 Coloradans have filled the prescription, but the state doesn’t know, and may never know, how many people took the drug.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment won’t have any report until the end of the year. The report will tell how many doctors and pharmacists handled prescriptions, but it won’t say how many people followed through, said spokesman Mark Salley. Death certificates will still note the terminal illness as the cause of death in Colorado.

Those backing the bill wanted to include privacy for those who make the decision.

Oregon’s law includes provisions for death certificates and other reporting. That data helps tell other states who might use the option, but, moreover, that close record-keeping has been held up as evidence that the practice is safe – that elderly people won’t be pressured into ending their lives, that depressed teenagers won’t use it, and that states that pass it won’t be a magnet to people wanting to die.

Only about 1 in 3 people who fill the prescription ever take it, according to the state of Oregon’s records.

Through last September, 1,545 Oregonians received prescriptions and 991 patients took the drugs and died, according to state records.

Last year, 203 people requested the medication, and 133 people died under Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, according to the state health department’s annual report. That was the second-highest number on record, followed by 218 requests and 135 deaths in 2015.

“Users are predominantly elderly, white, and well-educated,” Dr. Charles Blanke, a professor of medicine at Oregon’s Knight Cancer Institute, said at a oncology symposium last year, as reported by Medscape, a website for medical professionals. “Almost all patients are in hospice, and almost all take the medications at home after telling loved ones of their decision.”

His report said cancer patients made up 77 percent of the Oregon cases. As for reasons, 96 percent of patients cited “less able to engage in activities making life enjoyable,” 92 percent included loss of autonomy and 75 percent said loss of dignity.

In Oregon the most common life-ending drug is a lethal dose in a water-soluble capsule of secobarbital, followed by pentobarbital, with another drug to prevent vomiting.

Both are sedatives used to treat insomnia.

Margaret Dore, a lawyer and president of the Washington state-based opposition group Choice is an Illusion, argued effectively against legislation in Colorado in 2015 and 2016?.She’s bothered by the lack of a birth certificate notification. She said it would be make it difficult to ever prosecute anyone for pressuring someone who’s dying to end it more quickly. She called it “the perfect crime.”

And she said money is too common a motive for crime to dismiss it as impossible.

She recalled a client she had once.

“One side of the family wanted the father to take the lethal dose, and the other side didn’t,” Dore said. “The father spent the last months of his life caught in the middle and torn over whether he should take his life.”

He ultimately died of his illness, and Dore represented his daughter, who was traumatized by the infighting.

Kat West came to the issue first as a loved one then later as the Oregon-based national programs and policy director for Compassion & Choices, the country’s oldest and largest advocacy organizations for medical aid in dying.

Six years ago she was an environmental lawyer who worked for government entities, including the Environmental Protection Agency. As her mother lay dying with cancer in Oregon, West said she felt powerless because they didn’t know the options that were available. Her mother was suffering, and the family couldn’t get their questions answered by the hospice, West said.

“I can’t say enough about hospice care; it’s actually the best thing our healthcare system provides to U.S. residents,” West said. “But even with the best hospice care I became really disappointed in the end-of-life care she received, because every time I brought up something to her medical team, they’d say, ‘Oh, we’ll talk about that later, if we need to.’ I’d say, ‘No, we need to talk about this now. My mom wants to know what all her options are.'”

Too soon her mother’s mental capacity diminished to where she couldn’t make a decision on her own, so she became ineligible for the state’s Death with Dignity Act. There was no peace of mind for West’s family.

“I came away with this passion that other families don’t have to go through what my sister and I and my mom went through,” she said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to elaborate on West’s feelings during her mother’s time in hospice. West also tells Colorado Politics that pentobarbital hasn’t been available the last four years.