Senator Hassan Reintroduces Three Bipartisan Bills to Expand Access to Life-Saving Overdose Prevention Tools

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan recently reintroduced three bipartisan bills to help reduce overdose deaths and strengthen state and local responses to the fentanyl crisis. The bills focus on expanding access to fentanyl and xylazine test strips, improving flexibility in the use of overdose reversal drugs, and investing in training for first responders on how to use life-saving overdose reversal medications like naloxone.

“Communities in New Hampshire and around the country continue to feel the devastating impacts of fentanyl,” said Senator Hassan. “By expanding access to effective tools such as test strips for deadly substances like fentanyl and xylazine, we can help ensure that our first responders and community health providers are well-equipped to respond to overdoses and save lives.”

Senator Hassan and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) reintroduced the Advancing Lifesaving Efforts with Rapid Test Strips (ALERT) Communities Act, which would ensure that state and local governments can use State Opioid Response grants and First Responder overdose response grants to purchase and distribute life-saving test strips that detect fentanyl and xylazine. The bill also directs federal health agencies to support efforts to continue improving the quality of test strips, including test strips that can identify potential deadly substances yet to be developed..

Senator Hassan and Senator Cornyn also introduced the Halting the Epidemic of Addiction and Loss (HEAL) Act, which would expand access to the newest opioid overdose reversal medications by updating U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidance and federal grant language. The Safe Response Act, also introduced by Senator Hassan with her colleagues Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), would reauthorize a federal grant program that provides first responders and other frontline community members with technical training on how to administer opioid overdose reversal medications.

These bipartisan bills are part of Senator Hassan’s ongoing efforts to combat the opioid epidemic. She helped introduce the bipartisan HALT Fentanyl Act, which was signed into law last month, to permanently classify all fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act. Senator Hassan also helped advance the DETECT Fentanyl and Xylazine Act, which was signed into law last year and is supporting law enforcement with enhanced tools to find and eliminate illegal substances such as fentanyl and xylazine. Since 2017, Senator Hassan has successfully worked to secure a nine-fold increase in funding for New Hampshire to address the addiction epidemic.

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