A slightly larger number of Oregonians used the state's assisted-suicide law to end their lives in 2006 than in the year before, according to a report released Thursday by the state.

The Department of Human Services said 46 Oregonians, most of them suffering from cancer, committed suicide using the options provided by the law. That is eight more people than in 2005.

A total of 292 people have died under the law enacted in 1997.

People who used the law last year tended to have more formal education than the general population, as in years past. But unlike last year, the report shows patients who died in 2006 were slightly older -- a median age of 74 versus 69 in previous years.

"There is not very much that is new from year to year," said Barbara Lee, president of Compassion & Choices, which supports the law. "The practice has settled into a nice, safe, conservative practice."

The law allows a terminally ill, mentally competent adult to self-administer life-ending medication that is provided by a physician.

The Oregon law is the first and only one in the nation. It has inspired people to try to curb it and others to attempt to emulate it.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Oregon law last year, ruling that the Bush administration had improperly threatened to use a federal drug law against Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of medicine to dying patients who request it.

A number of other states have considered similar laws, including California, which is weighing a bill modeled after the Oregon law.

The California bill would add several more steps for patients to get the dose than under the Oregon law in an effort to limit abuse. It would require doctors give patients a summary of alternatives in writing. In the California draft, individuals not under hospice care would need a psychological evaluation and there would need to be two witnesses when a patient signs papers asking for the drug.

"We believe these additional safeguards will further enhance protections in the bill so any arguments by opponents are clearly addressed," said Donne Brownsey, a Sacramento lobbyist with the national organization Compassion and Choices.

Critics in California have said terminally ill patients can be treated with pain medication to relieve suffering.

Tim Rosales, a spokesman with the Californians Against Assisted Suicide, said Oregon's law was so broadly written that there has been no way to properly track patient complications or doctors who might fail to report cases under the law.

"There really is no safeguard you can have for something like assisted suicide," Rosales said. "We really don't know what is working in Oregon."

But at a Sacramento news conference Thursday, supporters said Oregon's experience over the last nine years has benefited patients who otherwise would have suffered a painful and inevitable death.

California lawmakers introduced their bill last month, but they face an uphill battle. Similar bills have failed in the past two years, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said that the issue should go directly to voters as a ballot initiative.