Opioid prescription drugs: prescribers.

Existing law requires a prescriber, as defined, to offer to a patient a prescription for naloxone hydrochloride or another drug approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the complete or partial reversal of opioid depression when certain conditions are present, including if the patient presents with an increased risk for overdose or a history of substance use disorder, and to provide education on overdose prevention to patients receiving a prescription and specified other persons. This bill would make those provisions applicable only to a patient receiving a prescription for an opioid or benzodiazepine medication, and would make the provisions specific to opioid-induced respiratory depression, opioid overdose, opioid use disorder, and opioid overdose prevention, as specified. The bill, among other exclusions, would exclude from the above-specified provisions requiring prescribers to offer a prescription and provide education prescribers when ordering medications to be administered to a patient in an inpatient or outpatient setting. The bill would exclude from the definition of "prescriber" a person licensed under the Veterinary Medicine Practice Act and would define other terms for purposes of those provisions. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.