What's happening
This bill requires hospitals, inpatient facilities, and correctional facilities to provide opioid overdose education and take-home opioid antagonists to discharged patients or inmates with opioid use disorder.
Why it matters
Expands access to life-saving medication. By requiring facilities to provide two take-home doses and a prescription for opioid antagonists (like naloxone), the bill increases the likelihood that individuals at high risk, or those around them, can respond quickly to an overdose.
Standardizes overdose education. The mandated education for patients and released inmates must follow Department of Health or federal SAMHSA guidelines, ensuring that recipients get consistent, medically sound information on overdose risks, rescue techniques, and emergency response.
Targets high-risk transitions. The bill specifically focuses on moments of heightened overdose risk—such as discharge from hospitals, inpatient addiction treatment, or correctional facilities—where individuals are statistically more vulnerable due to reduced tolerance or disrupted care.
Promotes public health and harm reduction. By embedding overdose prevention into discharge procedures, the legislation shifts institutional practices towards harm reduction, potentially decreasing fatal overdoses and supporting broader addiction recovery and public health efforts.
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Who cares
Headline styles
Send Naloxone Home With Patients
Plain English, a few words. Used as the page title.
Sponsors
Assembly Member · Assembly District 26
History
- Referred to alcoholism and drug abuse
- Referred to alcoholism and drug abuse
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Give Overdose Kits to Discharged
In Assembly Committee · Alcoholism And Drug Abuse · Sponsor Pete Harckham
Full text
2 pagesUnderlined is new[Struck] is removedOfficial text on nysenate.gov ↗
STATE OF NEW YORK
8541
2019-2020 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
August 23, 2019
Introduced by M. of A. BRAUNSTEIN -- read once and referred to the Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse
AN ACT to amend the mental hygiene law, in relation to providing discharged patients with opioid overdose training; to amend the correction law, in relation to providing discharged inmates with opioid overdose training; and to amend the public health law, in relation to the provision of opioid antagonists for take home use upon discharge from the hospital
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section 29.15 of the mental hygiene law is amended by adding a new subdivision (o) to read as follows:
(o) 1. A patient about to be discharged or conditionally released from an inpatient facility operated or licensed by the office of alcoholism and substance abuse services and who has been diagnosed with an opioid use disorder shall provide such patient with an opioid overdose education that:
(i) conforms to department of health or federal substance abuse and mental health services administration guidelines for opioid overdose education;
(ii) explains the causes of an opioid overdose;
(iii) instructs when and how to administer in accordance with medical best practices both:
(A) life-saving rescue techniques; and
(B) an opioid antagonist; and
(iv) explains how to contact appropriate emergency medical services.
2. Such facility shall also provide the patient as they leave the facility with:
(i) two doses of an opioid antagonist in a form approved for take home use by the federal food and drug administration; and
(ii) a prescription for an opioid antagonist.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[ ] is old law to be omitted.
LBD13207-02-9
A. 8541 2
§ 2. The correction law is amended by adding a new section 149-a to read as follows:
§ 149-a. Released inmates with opioid use disorder. 1. Upon discharge of an inmate who has been diagnosed with an opioid use disorder from a correctional facility, regardless of whether that inmate has received treatment for that disorder, the department shall provide such inmate with an opioid overdose education that:
(a) conforms to department of health or federal substance abuse and mental health services administration guidelines for opioid overdose education;
(b) explains the causes of an opioid overdose;
(c) instructs when and how to administer in accordance with medical best practices both:
(i) life-saving rescue techniques; and
(ii) an opioid antagonist; and
(d) explains how to contact appropriate emergency medical services.
2. Such facility shall also provide the inmate as they leave the facility with:
(a) two doses of an opioid antagonist in a form approved for take home use by the federal food and drug administration; and
(b) a prescription for an opioid antagonist.
§ 3. Subdivision 3 of section 2803-u of the public health law, as added by section 1 of part C of chapter 70 of the laws of 2016, is amended to read as follows:
3. Upon commencement of treatment, admission, or discharge of an individual with a documented substance use disorder or who appears to have or be at risk for a substance use disorder, including discharge from the emergency department, such hospital shall: (a) inform the individual of the availability of the substance use disorder treatment services that may be available to them through a substance use disorder services program; and (b) provide the individual with two doses of an opioid antagonist in a form approved for take home use by the federal food and drug administration.
§ 4. This act shall take effect on the one hundred eightieth day after it shall have become a law.
Reflowed for reading: line numbers and page breaks removed. Cite the official text.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.