The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill 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 from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) was approved in a voice vote on the floor on Tuesday. The measure was 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 Senate approved similar legislation with differing provisions earlier this year, and now the two versions must be reconciled before potentially being sent to President Donald Trump.
The bill 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, cocaine, opiates, and marijuana) when a patient is experiencing
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