Amy Lieberman

The Network for Public Health Law’s Harm Reduction Legal Project, in collaboration with ChangeLab Solutions, is hosting a series of four webinars funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to introduce two forthcoming resources that policy decision makers can use to support their work to advance policies to reduce overdose and other drug-related harm. Each webinar will introduce the resources, Preventing Overdose & Reducing Drug-Related Harm: A Policy Guide for State and Local Change and Implementing State and Local Overdose Prevention Policies: A Resource for Navigating the Policy Process. The individual webinars will additionally provide specific information on policies most relevant to one of four sectors: community, criminal/legal, healthcare, and schools (K-12). In this session – focused on the schools sector – a guest speaker will discuss their experience implementing harm reduction policies, including strategies and challenges, and answer questions from attendees.

The Network for Public Health Law’s Harm Reduction Legal Project, in collaboration with ChangeLab Solutions, is hosting a series of four webinars funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to introduce two forthcoming resources that policy decision makers can use to support their work to advance policies to reduce overdose and other drug-related harm. In this session – focused on the healthcare sector – a guest speaker will discuss their experience implementing harm reduction policies, including strategies and challenges, and answer questions from attendees.

The Network for Public Health Law’s Harm Reduction Legal Project, in collaboration with ChangeLab Solutions, is hosting a series of four webinars funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to introduce two forthcoming resources that policy decision makers can use to support their work to advance policies to reduce overdose and other drug-related harm. In this session – focused on the criminal/legal sector – a guest speaker will discuss their experience implementing harm reduction policies, including strategies and challenges, and answer questions from attendees.

In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, Network attorneys and staff have identified six key policies with the potential to significantly improve mental health outcomes across the United States. This policy brief covers a wide range of areas focused on communities and those who work to support communities. It is designed as a practical resource for public health professionals, leaders, and partners, offering strategies to enhance mental health and well-being while reducing disparities in mental health care.

Attend this webinar, co-sponsored by the Network’s Harm Reduction Legal Project and ChangeLab Solutions, to learn about resources communities can employ to support selecting, adopting, and implementing policies to reduce overdose and other drug-related harm. Law and policy experts will provide an overview of two recently published resources: Preventing Overdose and Reducing Drug-Related Harm: A Policy Guide for State and Local Change and Implementing State and Local Overdose Prevention Policies: A Resource for Navigating the Policy Process. Attendees will also hear from individuals working within their communities to implement harm reduction strategies and policies.

This fact sheet provides information on Pennsylvania's Act 139, which provides limited immunity to overdose victims and bystanders that seek medical help, and increases accesss to naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

This survey of state laws outlines how the legal landscape in each state may affect access to harm reduction services and supplies.

The increasing need for access to naloxone to reverse opioid-related overdoses has drawn the interest of pharmaceutical companies who see an opportunity to market new, non-generic, more potent opioid antagonist products. State lawmakers have made changes in policy based on these marketing efforts. However, early research suggests that these high dose drugs are unnecessary and pose significant risks and side-effects, raising concerns over the commercialization of harm reduction efforts in the U.S.

Over one million people in the U.S. have died from overdose since 1999. This year, as we remember those we’ve needlessly lost, we are also seeing calls for increased penalties for people who share drugs. Perhaps the cruelest form of these laws are drug-induced homicide (“DIH”) laws.

Variations among jurisdictions in determining and reporting causes of death and delays in obtaining and reporting fatality data often result in an incomplete and out-of-date view of the overdose epidemic in the U.S. It is imperative that health departments, harm reduction organizations, and people who use drugs are provided with accurate, timely and actionable information on drug-related overdose. This fact sheet provides a snapshot of current laws, regulations, and sub-regulatory sources governing mandatory disease reporting and a description of the laws and regulations governing reporting of overdoses in the jurisdictions that require or explicitly permit it as of March 31, 2023.

This fact sheet details the state laws that require private insurers to cover at least one formulation of naloxone and those that reduce barriers to access naloxone where it is covered. Because these laws were written during a time when no over the counter (OTC) naloxone formulations were available, none explicitly require coverage for OTC naloxone.

Equipping people who use drugs, as well as their friends and family members, with the overdose reversal medication naloxone can significantly reduce the number of opioid overdose deaths. This fact sheet discusses laws in California that protect those who respond at the scene of an overdose emergency, including by administering naloxone to a person experiencing an overdose. These laws show a clear intention by the state to encourage laypersons to respond to overdose and increase access to and use of naloxone to reduce preventable overdose death and disability.