State should extend opioid emergency
Months after a majority of voters in the May primary election approved a referendum to limit the governor’s ability to declare and manage emergencies, state legislators who sought the change have an early opportunity to prove that they are up to the job.
Republican lawmakers passed the referendum because they were upset over the restrictive measures that Gov. Tom Wolf imposed during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At that time, the governor had the authority to declare an emergency and renew it every 90 days, and the Legislature could revoke it only with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses.
Due to the constitutional amendment, a governor’s emergency declaration expires after 21 days unless lawmakers reauthorize it, and they can terminate an emergency at any time.
Unlike the full-time governor, though, the allegedly full-time Legislature has a part-time schedule. Neither house has a session scheduled until September.
Before the COVID-19 emergency declaration in March 2020, the state had been under an emergency declaration regarding the opioid addiction crisis, which Wolf first declared in January 2018, and had renewed a dozen times.
The emergency enabled the state to share prescription data and set prescription limits, increase treatment access, increase access to the opioid overdose antidote naloxone, and establish safe disposal methods for unused drugs.
Prior to the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state and the medical and treatment communities had made progress against the opioid scourge. But the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected treatment access while increasing social isolation, driving the renewed surge in opioid addiction and overdoses. Drug overdoses killed 93,000 Americans in 2020, a 29% increase over 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That included 5,172 people in Pennsylvania, 16% more than in 2019. About 65% of overdose deaths are due to opioids.
Wolf wants to renew the opioid emergency. But the vacationing Legislature would have to do so under the new amendment. Legislative leaders should answer Wolf’ s call to reconvene by Aug .26 to renew the emergency declaration.
This guest editorial first appeared in The Wilkes-Barre Citizen's Voice on Aug. 3, 2021.