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Kentucky governor signs bill decriminalizing fentanyl test strips

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Kentucky governor signs bill decriminalizing fentanyl test strips

Mar 30, 2023 | 9:40 pm ET
By Sarah Ladd
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Kentucky bill decriminalizing fentanyl test strips heads to governor’s desk
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The availability of tests is particularly important because Fentanyl is often laced into fake pills. Unwitting individuals may think they are ingesting one substance and unaware that it also contains fentanyl. (Getty Images)

FRANKFORT – Fentanyl test strips will no longer be considered drug paraphernalia in Kentucky. 

Gov. Andy Beshear on Friday signed a bipartisan bill decriminalizing fentanyl test strips in Kentucky after it easily passed both chambers. 

The Kentucky Senate passed House Bill 353 Thursday night. The House concurred unanimously in the final hours of the 2023 legislative session. 

Fentanyl test strips are paper strips that can detect the presence of fentanyl in pills and other drugs within minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that contributed to 73% of Kentucky’s  2,250 overdoses in 2021, the Lantern previously reported. Using the test strips can help prevent overdoses, the CDC says

“Unwitting individuals may think they are ingesting one substance and unaware that it also contains fentanyl,” Jennifer Hancock, president and CEO of Volunteers of America Mid-States, said in a statement. 

“With police departments and other emergency responders already carrying and administering NARCAN, a medicine used for the treatment of a known or suspected opioid overdose emergency, it makes sense to prevent these overdoses on the front end,” she said.  “It may afford another day where we can get an individual into recovery.”