Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed 11 special session bills designed to combat the state's opioid epidemic at three separate ceremonial events Monday.
Wisconsin lawmakers passed the bills under the Heroin Opiate Prevention and Education agenda during a special session. Collectively the new laws will allocate more funding for drug courts and rehabilitation programs, expand access to the opioid overdose antidote naloxone and extend the state's "Good Samaritan" law — which grants limited prosecutorial immunity to individuals who call 911 — to drug users experiencing an overdose.
Mr. Walker signed four H.O.P.E bills at Medical College of Wisconsin - Green Bay, three bills at D.C. Everest Senior High School in Schofield and four bills at the Onalaska Police Department.
"Like many states in our great nation, Wisconsin is experiencing a dangerous trend — a growing number of cases of opioid abuse and overdose," said Mr. Walker, during the ceremony in Green Bay. "[W]e won't stop until there are zero opioid overdoses in Wisconsin. The bills we're signing here today at Medical College of Wisconsin help us work toward that goal by requiring prescriptions for certain controlled substances, creating special fellowship programs, adding additional treatment centers and establishing an addiction medicine consultation program for doctors."
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