HARRISBURG — Legislation aimed at curbing Pennsylvania’s heroin and opioid epidemic was signed into law Wednesday. Senate Bill 1202, was introduced by state senators Gene Yaw (R-23rd, Williamsport) and John Wozniak (D-35th, Bedford).
Senator Yaw expanded on the legislation, “It will be now required that anybody dispensing drugs or opioids especially, must undergo some pain management training as part of their licensing. That’s going to be a big help, because right now I know that doctors have told me there is no requirement and they don’t get any pain management training.”
Another component focuses on giving pain medications to juveniles, “For example, sports injuries, when they have their wisdom teeth removed and they are really susceptible to the opioid problem. So, what we’ve done is said that for any minors, opioids can only be prescribed for a period of seven days, unless there is some type of medical emergency or something like that.”
They are also mandated to update the database within a 24-hour period, instead of 72-hours, “Somebody who knows how to gain the system in 72 hours can cause a lot of problems. I mean they can do a lot of shopping around between doctors and pharmacies. That’s the reason we thought that it needed to be addressed and reduced.”
Yaw was pleased the legislation was signed into law by the governor, “I think that everybody recognized that this was a problem. It’s a non-partisan problem. It was something that everybody needed to work together on to agree on some bills and run them and get them through the legislature without any problems.” (Ali Stevens)
