Free opioid test kits and research into safe use sites in refiled Markey bill

Boston Herald - 5/8/2023

To go along with his announcement he would refile legislation to make fentanyl testing kits more readily available and look into safe injection sites, the state’s junior senator was himself trained in the use of the overdose drug naloxone.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in the past decade the synthetic opioid fentanyl has gone from being a rarely seen chemical additive to heroin to being present in most illicit drugs sold on today’s black market.

From 2013 to 2021, the CDC reports, fentanyl involvement in overdose deaths rose from one death for every 100,000 Americans to 22 deaths per 100,000.

“A single life lost to the opioid epidemic is one life too many. The drug overdose crisis is devastating communities across the country. It knows no bounds — crossing state lines and harming Americans no matter their identity or ideology. And we are losing the fight. Tens of thousands of lives taken in a single year is an absolute and avoidable tragedy,” Sen. Ed Markey said in a morning statement.

Markey was in Boston Monday alongside staff from the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program to receive training in the administration of naloxone, also known as Narcan, a drug used to rapidly reverse the deadly symptoms of a drug overdose.

The senator used the occasion to announce he would re-introduce the Stop Fentanyl Overdoses Act, a bill which would make fentanyl testing kits available to drug users, limit civil liability for those who attempt to use Narcan to reverse an overdose, and require the government to look into the use of so-called “overdose prevention centers.”

“The opioid epidemic is a product of Big Pharma’s greed, and in the past decade, it has only gotten worse. Congress has an obligation to meet this crisis head on by ensuring we have all the tools available to understand current trends in the opioid epidemic and empower public health professionals to provide people the care they need,” Markey said.