Co-Sponsorship Memo Details

Response to Opioid Overdose Deaths
 
Opioid overdose deaths, 57 in Cambria County in 2015, and expected to reach 100 in 2016, have reached epidemic proportions throughout the county, endangering the addict, his family, and the community in Pennsylvania. Addicts that overdose and are taken to ER’s, given Naloxone, and thereafter refuse treatment walking out of the ER’s in many cases before the police arrive.
This session I will be re-introducing the Involuntary Commitment bill as “Summer’s Protection” modified to protect children of parents who overdose on opioids. Summer Chambers, an infant survived several days from starvation and dehydration after her parents died from a heroin overdose in their Kernville home the end of December 2016. It was noted that Johnstown police had been called to the home in November after father Jason Chambers overdosed and had to be revived with Narcan. When the good Samaritan and District Attorney’s cannot charge the overdose patient with possession of the illegal substance. Current law also allows the overdose patient to refuse medical treatment and assessment would protect the addict, his family and the community.
We need to do more, than hope that addicts voluntarily get treatment. Please join me in co-sponsoring 3 bills that will close loopholes that allow the opioid addict to beat the system. The 3 bills require addicts to receive effective treatment to end addiction by:
 

1. Providing for “Summer’s Protection” Involuntary Commitment for Emergency Opioid Overdoses and;
2. Reinstating Criminal Liability for Emergency Overdose Events.
3. Establishing Eight Regional Detox Centers across the Commonwealth paid for with tobacco
   settlement funds;