Because drug and alcohol overdoses are devastating California’s youth, families such as the Kennedy’s, have lobbied the legislature to enact the Good Samaritan Act. The Act provides protection for people seeking medical help in the event that they, or someone they know, experiences an accidental overdose. Please talk to your child about this law in the event they can help someone in need.
This law was passed with the hope of encouraging a witness of an accidental overdose to seek emergency medical help and to quell some of the worry that a person who is under the influence may have calling 911. It provides that these persons calling for help, even if they themselves are under the influence, will not face criminal liability for being under the influence of drugs.
California is now the tenth state to have passed such a law. The simple fact is that this will save lives.
A letter from the Kennedy Family
My wife and I are very grateful that the Good Samaritan Law was passed and we know without a shadow of a doubt that it is saving lives. We just wish it was the law when our son Joey overdosed on February 4, 2010. Because the people my son was with were afraid of getting in trouble with the police, they dumped him alongside of Camino Capistrano Road in San Juan Capistrano. He was alive when they dumped him, and they even made a 911 call, but when the dispatcher asked if they were with him, they said “no.” The dispatcher thought it was a prank, and even though he had the coordinates where Joey was, he decided not to respond to the call.
My son was found deceased the next morning. If the Good Samaritan Law was in place when Joey OD’d, he very well could be alive today. My wife and I, along with other parents who lost their children to overdose, worked diligently to get the Good Samaritan Law passed to save lives, and to spare other parents the unimaginable pain of losing a child. Please talk to your teen about this law.
James and Teri Kennedy