The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bill this week to require the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to study how prevalent drug testing for marijuana, fentanyl and other drugs is in hospital emergency departments.
The legislation, which cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee in a unanimous 46-0 vote in July, is set to be taken up on the floor as soon as Tuesday, according to a schedule posted by the office of Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA).
The measure will be considered under a procedure known as suspension of the rules, which does not allow for amendments and requires a two-thirds supermajority for passage.
The bill from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) is known as “Tyler’s Law,” after Tyler Shamash, a 19-year-old who died following a fentanyl ingestion in 2018 and was not tested for the drug when brought to the hospital for a suspected overdose.
While the legislation, H.R. 2004, is largely focused on fentanyl, it says that within a year of passage the HHS secretary would need to complete a study to determine “how frequently hospital emergency departments test for fentanyl (in addition to testing for other substances such as amphetamines, phencyclidine,
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