Melanie's Law requires all California middle school and high schools to come up with a plan to prevent and respond to fentanyl overdoses. This includes training teachers on life-saving fentanyl response and providing students and adults resources on what they need to know about the opioids.
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California State Senator Dave Cortese says this bill will save lives.
"They will have to have a plan to respond to any overdose and to any incident like this with Novoxil, which means they're gonna have to have it, and it means that when they read the fine print in this bill they're going to see that every single employee in the district and on these schools needs to be trained," Cortese said.
The announcement was made outside of the Los Angeles Unified School District's headquarters. Melanie's mom, Elena Perez, along with her team of lawyers are suing the district. In response to Melanie's death, LAUSD provided Narcan to schools to help with overdoses on campus.
MORE | Justice for Melanie: Year after teen's fentanyl death, mother pushing for law protecting others
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Justice for Melanie: Year after teen's fentanyl death, mother pushing for law protecting others
Perez says the new law aims to prevent the death of young people in schools, and that no mother should have to deal with the pain she's suffering over the loss of a child.
The new law goes into effect January 1, 2024. Melanie's mother urges parents that if they haven't had that talk with their children yet about drugs, do it now.