For Immediate Release: June 1, 2007
Media Contact: Hilary McQuie 510-333-8554

Overdose Bill Receives Unanimous California Senate Support

SACRAMENTO - California Senate Bill (SB) 767, the Overdose Treatment Liability Act, cosponsored by the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC), a national health and human rights advocacy group working to reduce drug-related harm, the County of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Overdose Taskforce, passed the bipartisan California Senate yesterday in a unanimous vote.

Thanks to the leadership of Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas, the author of SB 767, California legislators are beginning to recognize the importance of access to naloxone, a very safe drug that lay people, with appropriate training, can safely and properly administer. SB 767 will make it easier for health care professionals to participate in comprehensive drug overdose prevention programs that prescribe the opioid antagonist naloxone, thereby removing a large obstacle to the creation and expansion of such programs in California. This proposed legislation will also make it easier to get naloxone into the hands of the people who are the most likely to be bystanders to opioid overdoses, increasing the likelihood that people overdosing on opioids will receive naloxone promptly.

When the Senate Judiciary Committee heard the bill early last month, Sandi McClure, a member of the Los Angeles Overdose Taskforce, delivered powerful testimony about the loss of her daughter, Jennifer, 15 months ago to a heroin overdose. Ms. McClure noted that if her daughter or her friends had access to naloxone and knew how to respond to an overdose, Jennifer might still be alive today.

Drug overdose, which is entirely preventable, is the second leading cause of accidental death in the United States. When a person overdoses on opioids (heroin, morphine, methadone, oxycontin, etc.), he/she is rendered unconscious and is in danger of dying because the opioids slow down, and eventually stop, the person's breathing. Naloxone counteracts life-threatening depression of the central nervous and respiratory systems caused by an opioid overdose, allowing an overdose victim to breathe normally. Currently, naloxone can be prescribed only by licensed health care professionals, and has the same level of regulation as prescription ibuprofen. SB 767 protects providers who prescribe take-home naloxone, facilitating greater access to lifesaving medicine for people experiencing opioid overdoses. The Assembly Judiciary Committee will hear the bill later this month.

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For more information about the Harm Reduction Coalition, visit http://www.harmreduction.org/.