Corey Davis, J.D., M.S.P.H., serves as Director of the Network’s Harm Reduction Legal Project, which works to address the legal and policy barriers that impede the establishment and expansion of evidence-based harm reduction measures such as naloxone distribution, syringe access programs, and access to evidence-based substance use disorder treatment. Corey and his team provide guidance and consultation in navigating the often extremely confusing maze of existing laws and regulations that hamper harm reduction initiatives.
Corey was previously a Senior Attorney at the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), where he helped to advance access to quality health care for low-income and underserved individuals. Before joining NHeLP Corey served as Employment Rights Attorney at Equality Advocates Pennsylvania, where he represented lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals before administrative commissions and in state and federal courts. He previously oversaw a street-based legal clinic sited at Philadelphia’s syringe exchange program.
Corey has served as chair of a county board of health, chair of the board of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, and vice-chair of the North Carolina Harm Public Health Foundation, among other positions. He is a recipient of the International AIDS Society’s Young Investigator Award and has published extensively in the lay and academic press. Corey received his B.S. from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, his M.S.P.H. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his J.D. from Temple University. Corey is barred in Pennsylvania and New Jersey as well as various federal courts.
This fact sheet briefly discusses the efficacy of expired naloxone and examines whether Washington law permits the distribution and administration of such naloxone.
This fact sheet briefly discusses the efficacy of expired naloxone and examines whether California law permits the distribution and administration of such naloxone.
The United States remains in the grip of both COVID-19 and drug-related harm. Both are public health emergencies marked by tens of thousands of preventable deaths – and both disproportionately impact Black, Hispanic, Native, and other non-White people. Addressing the structural racism that drive inequality in access to economic opportunity, educational attainment, and other factors that ultimately drives health disparities must be a key public health priority – both during the dual COVID and overdose epidemics and beyond.
The medications for opioid use disorder, methadone and buprenorphine, can reduce overdose deaths by over 50 percent. Unfortunately, many people who want to access these medications are unable to do so because of federal and state legal restrictions, primarily the federal X-waiver, which a physician must obtain in order to prescribe these medications. While the requirement itself is statutory and can only be changed by Congress, the departments of Justice and Health and Human Services (HHS) have a great deal of autonomy in determining its exact contours.
We conducted a systematic legal review to determine the prevalence and characteristics of state laws that require some or all hospital emergency departments to create protocols to screen patients for substance use disorder as well as those that require that hospitals take specific actions when providing care to such individuals or individuals who have experienced an overdose.
Over the past ten years, there have been important and lifesaving efforts to address drug related harm. All states have passed laws increasing access to the overdose reversal medication naloxone and nearly all have passed overdose Good Samaritan laws, and dedicated advocates have succeeded in legalizing syringe services programs in several states. Unfortunately, law still overwhelmingly works to increase, rather than decrease, risks to people who use drugs. In this commentary, Corey Davis, director of the Network’s Harm Reduction Legal Project, reflects on efforts to address the opioid epidemic and why additional systemic change is needed. Read more.
This resource summarizes the characteristics of naloxone access and Good Samaritan laws in 50 states and the District of Columbia.
In this webinar, presenters will describe the nature of the laws being announced from the judicial bench or proposed in state legislatures, the process by which they are being formulated in every level and branch of government, and the principles that should guide legal developments as we seek to balance the facts, expert opinion, and civic participation, as well as guard against harmful unforeseen consequences.
The Network has joined with public health law partners to produce a new report, COVID-19 Policy Playbook: Legal Recommendations for a Safer, More Equitable Future, examining policy challenges and opportunities in light of the pandemic. In this Q&A, the Network’s Corey Davis and Amy Lieberman discuss some of the key elements in the chapter they co-authored for the report including the positive impact of opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment, recent changes to increase access to that treatment, and recommendations for permanently reducing legislative and regulatory barriers to effective, evidence-based interventions for OUD.
President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) into law on March 11, 2021. While most media attention focused on its headline provisions, including $1,400 stimulus checks for many individuals, $350 billion in aid to state, local, and tribal governments, and expansions in the Earned Income Tax Credit and child tax credit, the Act also contains historic assistance for harm reduction programs.
by Overview The United States continues to experience an epidemic of drug-related harm, most of which could be prevented by expanding existing interventions,…
The United States continues to experience an unprecedented level of drug-related harm. While the failure to prevent this harm is most notable in the number of overdose deaths, which are now at their highest level on record, it is evident in other areas as well. Of particular importance from a policy perspective, bloodborne disease infections related to syringe sharing are also on the rise, with recent outbreaks in Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Indiana, among other states. Cases of infective endocarditis, which is caused largely by unsafe injection, are increasing as well.
