The North Carolina Senate passed a bill this week that will prevent overdose deaths in North Carolina. This is great news. Drug users living with HIV are 74% more likely to die of a drug overdose.
Our partners at the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition played a crucial role in advocating for the bill. Here's their summary of what it will do if it becomes law.
1.) Permits a practitioner acting in good faith and exercising reasonable care to prescribe, dispense or distribute, directly or by standing order, an opioid antagonist (Naloxone/Narcan) to “a person at risk of experiencing an opiate-related overdose or a family member, friend, or other person in a position to assist a person at risk of experiencing an opiate-related overdose.”
2.) Permits a person who received an opioid antagonist (Naloxone/Narcan) under the terms outlined above to administer that antagonist to another person if “the person has a good faith belief that the other person is experiencing a drug-related overdose and the person exercises reasonable care in administering the drug to the other person.”
3.) Provides immunity from civil and criminal liability for the practitioner and administrator outlined above.
4.) 911 Good Samaritan Provision....Provides limited protection from prosecution for any person who seeks medical assistance in good faith for a person experiencing a drug-related overdose and/or any person who experiences a drug-related overdose and is in need of medical assistance if the evidence for the prosecution was obtained as a result of the seeking of medical assistance.The bill passed 50 - 0, and now goes on to the House of Representatives.
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