Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Naloxone laws to prevent overdose

There have been a slew of recent bills introduced or passed to improve naloxone access around the United States. Most of these are similar to previous U.S. models, although some are quite innovative. 

First, here's a summary from the Network for Public Health Law of naloxone (and Good Samaritan) laws as of October 2012, when 8 U.S. states had naloxone access laws (CA, CT, MA, NM, NY, IL, WA, RI).

Now, below are some links to recently approved or newly considered bill/law text. Please let us know if there are others and offer comments on any of these. It's getting hard to keep track, so I've added a simple map - black areas have naloxone laws and orange areas have pending laws (black states with an orange mark have existing laws with pending modifications).



New laws:

Bills:
California (builds on existing law that is to sunset)
Colorado
Massachusetts (not sure in what ways this expands on existing law Act 192)
New Mexico (appropriations to support naloxone distribution)
Oregon (SB 384, passage appears likely, bill with amendments here)
Vermont (bill appears to require only consideration of a law change to encourage naloxone prescription)
West Virginia (requires naloxone be offered to all patients receiving chronic opioid therapy)



4 comments:

  1. I can offer comments and information and answer questions about the Bill in Maryland! Who should I email?

    (I don't know why it's logging me in as bMoreGlutenFree but I don't know how to change it quickly, lol, sorry.)

    Warmly,

    Jen Kirschner
    Director, Baltimore Student Harm Reduction Coalition
    BaltimoreStudentHRC@gmail.com

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  2. Washington State should be black on this map.

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  3. Oops - WA dropped out when I added Colorado. Thanks Lindsay.

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  4. Ohio and Oklahoma have pending naloxone legislation

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