California Comprehensive Overdose Treatment Protection Signed by Governor (Harm Reduction Coalition)

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California Comprehensive Overdose Treatment Protection Signed by Governor

SACRAMENTO, CA — Governor Brown signed AB 635, authored by Assembly member Ammiano, to decrease overdose fatalities in California by increasing the distribution of an opioid overdose antidote, naloxone. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, surpassing motor vehicle crash deaths.

This legislation protects doctors and other licensed health professionals who prescribe and distribute naloxone to those who need it, including at-risk illicit or prescription drug users and potential bystanders to an overdose. It also clarifies that treatment providers and other non-medical personnel are able to distribute the prescription antidote under a doctor’s “standing orders”. This practice translates into significant cost savings for individuals and taxpayers. Additionally, the bill will encourage health care providers to begin prescribing naloxone to patients on chronic opioid pain medications in order to address the prescription drug overdose epidemic.

Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC), bill co-sponsor with the California Society of Addiction Medicine, applauded the legislature. “In California, overdose prevention programs have operated in a handful of cities and counties, but have had limited reach in terms of addressing the overdose issue statewide because of potential legal concerns” explained HRC California Director, Hilary McQuie. “We applaud Governor Brown for joining this bipartisan consensus to protect the programs already operating, remove the obstacles for those that want to start, and clarify that prescribers may employ the ‘best practice’ of prescribing naloxone to those at greatest risk for overdose.”

Overdose prevention programs distribute the life-saving drug naloxone (also known as Narcan®), which reverses an opioid overdose from drugs like heroin, oxycodone, morphine, or methadone by restoring an overdosing person’s breathing and heart rate. The state’s longest-running overdose prevention program, the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education Project (DOPE) in San Francisco, a program of the Harm Reduction Coalition, has provided over 3600 take-home naloxone prescriptions since 2003 in collaboration with the San Francisco Department of Public Health, with over 1000 lives saved. In addition, clinicians at SFDPH public health clinics started co-prescribing naloxone with prescription opioids this year to their patients. According to a Centers for Disease Control report, overdose prevention programs distributing naloxone in the US have trained over 50,000 laypersons to revive someone during an overdose to date, resulting in over 10,000 overdose reversals using naloxone. However, many licensed health care practitioners still fear prescribing take-home opioid antagonists like naloxone to their patients because of potential civil and criminal liability.

http://harmreduction.org/overdose-prevention/caoverdoseprev/

[William769]

1. Good!