Legislative action around the opioid crisis often overlooks the specific harms that construction workers experience. That’s changing.
In the latest effort to address the opioid crisis on a citywide scale, New York City Council Member Linda Lee proposed Intro. 1385 on Sept. 10 — a controversial bill that would require the commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene to institute an opioid antagonist program for the immediate treatment and recovery of workers who have overdosed on the job.
The program would provide overdose prevention training to site safety professionals at each major building construction site, along with five on-site kits stocked with opioid antagonist medications, like naloxone. “This initiative will ensure that construction sites are equipped with opioid antagonist kits to reverse the effects of deadly overdoses and connect individuals to recovery and support,” Lee said in a statement to Columbia News Service…