The Virginia lawmakers just approved a law that would limit the use of opioid relating to medicine. They have set new guidelines as to how much and the maximum amount an individual can take.
The decision that the lawmakers made was to solve the increasing number of opioid addiction in the state. Virginia's Board of Medicine has permitted the regulation of prescribing opioids for pain. The board have voted last Thursday, Washington Post has reported. The board is just waiting for the governor's signature that will make the laws effective immediately. The House Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee have all voted for the bills for it to be in the full House of Delegates's way for consideration.
In November last year, Gov. Terry McAuliffe and State Health Commissioner Marissa Levine have annopunced that Virginia is in opioid crisis a public health emergency, Chicago Tribune stated. There are three Virginian citizens that die because of drug overdose, according to Levine. Ensuring the patients' health and not turning them into street addicts is what the new bills are for, said Ralston King of the Medical Society of Virginia.
Some of the House bills that are moving through the legislative process are HB 1885, HB 2165, HB 1750 and HB 2167. The first one prohibits doctors from prescribing more than a seven-day supply of controlled substances containing opioids. Exceptions would be made for cancer and chronic pain patients. The second one, HB 2165, requires electronic prescriptions for drugs containing opioids - an effort to crack down on prescription fraud. The third one would let pharmacists dispense naloxone, an opioid overdose antidote, to patients who don't have a prescription.
Last but definitely not the least is HB 2167. It requires the boards regulating doctors and dentists to adopt rules for prescribing opioids and products containing buprenorphine, a drug used by addicts to suppress withdrawal symptoms. Another bill proposed, HB 1453, will let other people use naloxone. People that trained in the state Department of Behavioral Health and Human Developmental Services will teach others to manage naloxone.
Watch below the effects of Opioid in human body and lives.
