SPRINGFIELD — Legislation that would require Illinois public libraries to have life-saving medications on hand for people experiencing opioid overdoses and provide staff training has unanimously passed the Illinois Senate and is now on Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk.
The legislation, House Bill 1910, was proposed by a high school student in Elgin. It would require all Illinois public libraries to maintain a supply of opioid antagonists like naloxone — a nasal spray that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose with virtually no side effects — and have at least one staff member working at all operating hours who is trained in administering the medication.
Illinois Math and Science Academy senior Jordan Henry brought the idea for the bill to Rep. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, after volunteering with harm reduction organizations and researching effective responses to opioid substance abuse.
“It’s a good example of how anyone can change public policy if they work at it and are dedicated and have a passion,” Moeller said. Moeller first met Henry while door-knocking one summer, and after discussing Henry’s idea for the bill, worked together with her to draft and introduce it in the spring legislative session.
“We are recognizing that having access to Narcan and opioid antagonists is a good first aid step for people who are experiencing opioid overdoses,” Moeller said.
A similar system has been implemented in the city of Chicago since 2022. Moeller said part of the idea behind the bill was to expand that benefit to all Illinois residents with support from the Illinois departments of Public Health and Human Services and the state’s Drug Overdose Prevention Program. The program is focused on distributing overdose medications to public facilities and nonprofits throughout Illinois.
“Libraries were identified as being an important institution because they’re open to the public,” Moeller said. “So having this available there makes sense.”
The bill would allow trained library workers to administer opioid antagonists to potential overdose victims on library grounds, in the immediate vicinity of libraries and at library events.
One difference between the proposed state program and the system in place in Chicago is that while Chicago generally allows anyone from the public to take and administer available medications, the state program would allow only trained library staff members to administer the medication to someone experiencing a crisis.
“We wanted to make sure that only trained individuals are using it,” Moeller said. “These medications are very safe and not very difficult to use, but there is training so that you know somebody on the library staff or a volunteer who’s working with this program will be able to administer if somebody is having an overdose in a library.”
Moeller said she is optimistic the governor will sign the measure into law.
Isabella Schoonover is a graduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.