House Bill 2941<\/a>.<\/p>\nRep. Steve Bashore of Miami wrote the bill, which passed the legislature and earned Gov. Stitt\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m hoping is for the fentanyl overdoses to dramatically drop or hopefully to eliminate in the future,\u201d Bashore said, \u201cIt brings in more individuals to oversee the actual implementation of reporting. So the main goal is to improve communication.\u201d<\/p>\n
The legislation requires emergency medical technicians to call law enforcement when responding to overdoses.<\/p>\n
Carey now works for Haven Detox in Tulsa. He reflected on his experiences with overdose and the immediate response.<\/p>\n
\u201cOftentimes, whenever first responders, or the police, are involved, it\u2019s a chaotic scene anyway. Oftentimes, law enforcement can cause a little more chaos. Add to that chaos,\u201d Carey said.<\/p>\n
EMT\u2019s are granted legal immunity through the bill\u2019s language. Another provision of the bill requires officials to list fentanyl as the presumed cause of death if found in testing.<\/p>\n
Bashore said that came at the recommendation of several district attorneys.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re criminalizing someone who actually has a disease. You know? They need help. They don\u2019t need to be incarcerated. They need resources to get help,\u201d Carey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully it will lead to: where did this drug come from? Where can we find it? Who\u2019s supplying it? You never know. Hopefully it can, and that\u2019s the whole goal, just to improve communication,\u201d Bashore said.<\/p>\n
The bill becomes law on Nov. 1, 2026.<\/p>\n
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere —<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TULSA, Okla. \u2014 An opioid overdose killed 565 Oklahomans in 2024. More than 2,700 Oklahomans have died after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[120817,120818,120819,120820,120821,120822,123,125,124,81485,120823,120824],"class_list":["post-284451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-2-works-for-you","tag-2-works-for-you-news","tag-channel-2-news","tag-green-country-news","tag-kjrh","tag-local-news-tulsa","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-oklahoma-news","tag-tulsa-news","tag-tulsa-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}