SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Seventeen-year-old Zach Didier died just a few months short of graduating high school in December 2020.
Police said he bought a pill he thought was Percocet on Snapchat during winter break, but it was fentanyl.
“Zach lived in rocklin, lived in my neighborhood," Assemblymember Joe Patterson said. "He was a star athlete, great student.”
Assemblymember Joe Patterson’s very first bill this week as a new member of the State assembly was in honor of his neighbor Zach.
“AB19, which was the bill I introduced within an hour of being sworn in, would require all public schools k through 12 to have Narcan, or ageneric version of it," Patterson said. "Two doses on every campus. It's a very simple bill.”
A simple bill, with a simple goal: save lives.
The California Department of Public Health said in 2021, fentanyl killed 224 teenagers aged 15 to 19.
“It's best to be prepared for any situation in order to be equipped with saving a life whenever there is a need," a Rocklin Unified School District Communication Director Sundeep Dosanjh said.
Dosanjh said his school district has not had to use the life-saving treatment on school grounds.
“As of today, all Rocklin Unified campuses have Narcan readily available," he said. "We are currently in the process of getting our staff trained. This will be in addition to the Narcan that's been available through the school resource officers, which has been in place for many years.”
Republican or Democrat, Dosanjh says it doesn’t matter who is behind a bill like this.
“School districts are nonpartisan," he said. "So if there's an effort to help schools best support our students, families, we're all for it.”
There are about 10,000 schools in California. If each one is supposed to have two doses of Narcan, let’s just say they get the most expensive kind, that’s a total of $1.2 million.
Patterson called it budget dust, and is not concerned about it as the state heads into what could be a budget deficit.
"It's a very small number when you talk about saving a life," Patterson said.
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