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In an effort to fight a rising variety of opioid overdose deaths within the state, the Texas Home on Monday gave preliminary approval to a invoice that will decriminalize fentanyl check strips, which warn folks if a drug they’re about to take incorporates traces of the lethal artificial opioid.

The Home voted 135-7 to offer preliminary approval to Home Invoice 362 by Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress. The laws nonetheless wants closing approval from the chamber, which it’s anticipated to get on Tuesday, earlier than it heads to the Senate.

“Overdose deaths proceed to skyrocket as fentanyl floods throughout our southern border, and we want a method to fight the disaster,” Oliverson mentioned on the ground of the Home on Monday. “Decriminalizing check strips is a technique to try this.”

The invoice would take fentanyl check strips off the state’s “drug paraphernalia” listing, which means it might now not be against the law to hold strips that will check for fentanyl or different fentanyl derivatives. Supporters of the invoice say that will stop overdose deaths by giving folks a instrument to know if a drug they’re about to take has been combined with fentanyl.

Nationwide, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention reported that greater than 107,000 folks died from drug overdoses in 2021. Artificial opioids have been answerable for 71,000 of these deaths, and so they have been largely brought on by fentanyl.

Fentanyl is an artificial opioid that’s 100 occasions extra highly effective than morphine and 50 occasions extra highly effective than heroin. It’s typically prescribed by docs for ache administration, however has grow to be available on the illicit market because of its manufacturing by Mexican drug cartels.

The prison organizations favor manufacturing of fentanyl over different medicine as a result of it is vitally low-cost to make, rising their income. Drug sellers have additionally began mixing fentanyl into different medicine or disguising their fentanyl to make it seem like prescribed drugs.

However in contrast to medically prescribed fentanyl, the cartels’ illegally produced drug has no oversight and infrequently incorporates deadly doses. As little as 2 milligrams, in regards to the dimension of 5 grains of salt, might be lethal relying on an individual’s physique dimension and tolerance.

Although the invoice is a step ahead, drug coverage specialists say it doesn’t go far sufficient. By solely specializing in fentanyl, lawmakers are repeating previous coverage errors of fixating solely on the drug of the day whereas different, typically stronger, medicine are starting to penetrate the unlawful drug market.

Katharine Neill Harris, a drug coverage fellow at Rice College’s Baker Institute for Public Coverage, mentioned lawmakers ought to take into account increasing the invoice to cowl gear that checks for different medicine, together with xylazine, an animal tranquilizer that’s more and more being combined into fentanyl and different illicit opioids. The drug causes a stupor that may final for hours. It additionally results in wounds of a scaly lifeless tissue known as eschar that, if left untreated, might require amputation. Xylazine check strips not too long ago turned commercially accessible however such check strips for managed substances are unlawful to hold in Texas.

“Fortunately, xylazine just isn’t but a serious drawback in Texas,” Neill Harris mentioned. “But when we don’t act now, it’s going to grow to be one. Increasing HB 362 to incorporate xylazine check strips would assist the state intercept this drug earlier than it turns into a higher menace.”

In March, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration warned of a pointy enhance of fentanyl combined with xylazine, which was making the deadliest drug menace within the nation “even deadlier.”

Nonetheless, the decriminalization of fentanyl check strips is an acknowledgment by Republican state leaders that their previous “powerful on medicine” strategy has not labored.

In Texas, the CDC predicts that greater than 5,000 folks died of drug overdoses between July 2021 and July 2022. Overdose deaths involving fentanyl within the state greater than quadrupled in two years, rising from 333 folks dying in fiscal yr 2019 to 1,662 deaths in fiscal yr 2021.

These numbers are doubtless far brief of the particular fentanyl-related deaths within the state, the place monitoring of opioid overdose deaths is insufficient. Texas has solely 9 medical experts’ workplaces for a inhabitants of 30 million, which means that a number of the state’s investigation and monitoring of deaths is scattered and doesn’t all the time attain the degrees of scrutiny to find whether or not opioids have been concerned.

The elevated penetration of fentanyl into Texas’ unlawful drug market has led to a rash of youngster deaths throughout the state, some after they believed they have been taking a unique kind of drug.

Deaths from fentanyl lower throughout age, race and wealth teams, making combating overdoses a prime precedence for lawmakers this session. Gov. Greg Abbott, who beforehand opposed decriminalizing fentanyl check strips, got here out in favor of the coverage final yr.

The subject is a uncommon level of bipartisan settlement on the Legislature, the place a number of comparable payments are filed in each the Home and the Senate.

Erin Douglas contributed to this story.

Disclosure: Rice College’s Baker Institute for Public Coverage has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full listing of them right here.

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