HARRISBURG – Senate Republicans highlighted a package of bills today to combat the state’s heroin and opioid epidemic by improving prescription drug monitoring, limiting opioid prescriptions, targeting drug dealers and taking other steps to limit the damage inflicted by the addiction crisis in Pennsylvania communities.
The package includes:
- Senate Bill 93, sponsored by Senator Camera Bartolotta (R-46), which cracks down on drug dealers by creating a new statute establishing a second degree felony for the delivery or distribution of an illicit drug that results in “serious bodily injury” to the user.
- Senate Bill 112, sponsored by Senator Gene Yaw (R-23), which seeks to prevent addiction stemming from opioid prescriptions by limiting the prescription for a controlled substance containing an opioid to seven-days unless there is a medical emergency that puts the patients’ health or safety at risk.
- Senate Bill 118, sponsored by Senator Wayne Langerholc, Jr. (R-35), which will help break the cycle of addiction by creating a Recovery-to-Work pilot program to connect individuals in recovery with occupations through local workforce development boards
- Senate Bill 223, sponsored by Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill (R-28), which will ensure more overdose victims get timely, life-saving treatment in the future by allowing providers to leave a dose package of naloxone with an on-scene caregiver of a patient who overdosed on opioids.
- Senate Bill 432, sponsored by Phillips-Hill, which will improve prescription drug monitoring by allowing Medicaid Managed Care Organizations to have access to the information in the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.
- Senate Bill 572, sponsored by Senator Ryan P. Aument (R-36), which will help identify individuals in need of treatment and prevent prescription drug diversion by requiring new patients who need a prescribed opioid regimen to enter into treatment agreements with a prescriber.
- Senate Bill 675, sponsored by Senator Michele Brooks (R-50), which will help prevent the abuse of the addiction treatment drug buprenorphine by requiring certification of office-based prescribers and limiting its use.
The package of bills is a continuation of bipartisan efforts led by Senate Republicans over the past six years to combat the opioid epidemic.
Beginning in 2014, lawmakers joined the Center for Rural Pennsylvania for a series of hearings to study the problem and identify solutions. As a result of these hearings, new laws were created to limit prescriptions, improve and expand addiction treatment, and improve public education about the dangers of drug abuse.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, opioid drug deaths statewide rose steadily in the early part of the decade before peaking at 5,559 in 2017. The number of opioid drug deaths finally declined in 2018 to 4,267. At the same time, opioid prescriptions in Pennsylvania declined by 14 percent between 2016 and 2017.
The Senate expects to consider all of the bills this week.
CONTACT: Colleen Greer 717-787-1463 (Senator Bartolotta)
Rita Zielonis 717-787-3280 (Senator Yaw)
Gwenn Dando 717-787-5400 (Senator Langerholc)
Jon Hopcraft 717-787-7085 (Senator Phillips-Hill)
Ryan Boop 717-787-4420 (Senator Aument)
Diane McNaughton 717-787-1322 (Senator Brooks)