If you had the chance to do the right thing, even if it had consequences, would you?
According to the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, the 911 Good Samaritan law seeks to encourage individuals enduring a drug overdose to get help. The concept is, if you witness an overdose, you won’t get in trouble for calling for help, or if you are the one experiencing the overdose, you won’t get in trouble for receiving the help called on your behalf. This also applies to underage drinking and small amounts of drugs or paraphernalia that may be on the scene at the time. Introduced to North Carolina in 2013, the law seeks to help prevent the more than 60,000 overdoses the United States sees per year and the estimated 1,100 in North Carolina alone.
Good Samaritan Law advocate and educator Julie Cummins, who lost her son in 2017, believes the law could help today’s youth if more were educated on the topic.
“If you or a friend is in any kind of danger, you will not be in trouble,” Cummins said. “All you have to do is make the call for help. I’m really passionate about [promoting this law], because the time I feel good [about my son’s death] is when something positive is happening from it.”
Tessie Castillo is the communications coordinator for the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, an organization that played an important role in getting the law passed in 2013.
“First we had to find advocates, such as mothers who had lost children to overdose because someone was afraid to call 911, to help advocate for the law,” Castillo said. “One of these mothers talked about losing her daughter in front of a group of legislators. Two legislators came forward afterwards and offered to help introduce a bill into the legislature. From there, we had to help craft the bill and convince the other legislators to vote for it as it moved through committees and floor votes.”
Castillo also notes the impact of the implementation of the law.
“We‘ve taken surveys of people who use drugs through our harm reduction program,” Castillo said. “[The results] of a survey we did in 2015 [reported] 88 percent of respondents saying they were more likely to call 911 because of the [new] law,” Castillo said.
North Carolina is considered a state with statistically significant drug overdose death rates, seeing a 24.7 percent increase from 2015 to 2016. Since 1999, opioid overdose deaths multiplied five times, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I think we live in a world that is extremely harsh on kids,” said Michelle Guarino, a licensed clinical social worker who has been actively fighting the battle against teen drug use for years. “It’s a very hard society for kids to grow up in. Drug use is a coping skill. Law enforcement would absolutely rather get that call that someone needs help than have to make that phone call to tell a parent their son or daughter isn’t coming home.”
The push to implement education about this law into public schools has increased in recent years as the law’s benefits become more and more crucial.
“[We should] get students to default in a bad situation, where they know they can make this call, they can still be there and they’re going to be okay,” principal Justin Bartholomew said. “I didn’t even know the law existed [until recently], but something had happened [with a member of our community], and one of the detectives told his mother, ‘Hey, you know there’s this law where you can call 911, and you’re not held liable.’”
However, some concerns arise with the law’s wording and specifications. The immunity from the law in these situations is considered “limited,” meaning some rules and regulations do apply. Most of these include the physical amount of substances allowed on a citizen at the time of the incident. Additionally, if it is determined there was no reasonable cause to call for help, the immunity may not apply. While these factors create some issues, members of legislation and community members alike are trying to make the law more accessible.
Cummins’ daughter, Elly, has been actively attempting to alter the law so that it may apply to more people. She is working alongside Bridget O’Donnell, whose brother Sean died in 2017.
“The girls have been able to get [word about the law] out,” Cummins said. “They’ve been working with the lady who wrote the first version [of the law] in hopes of figuring out how to get rid of the loopholes in it. One of the glitches it has right now is it says the first person to call [for help] has immunity. We’re trying to get that fixed so that anyone who calls has immunity.”
While the law has some current complications, law enforcement encourages teens to make the call that could save a life.
“Younger kids are using harder drugs,” said John Paul, a law enforcement gang specialist. ‘In that moment, when you’re talking about life or death, the last thing that should be on someone’s mind is, ‘Am I going to get in trouble?’ Make that call, save a life, and we will figure everything else out later.”
– By Zoe Willard
