Designates Good Samaritan Awareness Month

Summary#

SR-411 is a Pennsylvania Senate resolution, not a bill that amends an existing law. It would designate November 2026 as “Good Samaritan Law Awareness Month” and encourage government branches to promote awareness; its stated goal is to help people know about existing overdose-related protections.

  • It would designate November 2026 for awareness of Pennsylvania’s Good Samaritan laws.
  • It would encourage all state and local executive, legislative and judicial branches to raise awareness and promote those laws. This is encouragement, not a requirement.
  • It would not change the protections in Act 139 of 2014 or create a new program, benefit, penalty or enforcement power.
  • The resolution has been introduced and referred to a Senate committee; it has not been adopted.

What it means for you#

  • Pennsylvania residents: The resolution would not itself change your legal rights or duties, or require you to report an overdose or call 911.
  • State and local government: The resolution encourages government branches to promote awareness, but does not assign specific tasks or require any particular outreach.
  • People responding to overdoses: The resolution does not alter the protections it attributes to Act 139 of 2014. The text supplied does not include that Act, so its exact protections and limits cannot be verified here.

Money#

No cost information is in the available material.

  • The resolution contains no appropriation or cost estimate.
  • It does not specify whether government outreach would use existing resources or require additional spending.

What is unclear#

  • What information outreach should include, who would lead it, and how it would be delivered are not specified.
  • The resolution does not set a budget, timeline beyond November 2026, or way to measure whether awareness increases.
  • The exact scope and limits of Act 139’s protections cannot be checked against the current law because the Act is not supplied.

Case for#

  • The resolution appears intended to address limited public awareness of overdose protections. It cites a federal review that found awareness varied and that people were more likely to call 911 when they knew about Good Samaritan laws.
  • A possible argument for designating a month is that it gives government branches a shared opportunity to publicize existing protections without changing the law.
  • The resolution also cites a pattern of lower opioid-related overdose death rates in states with Good Samaritan laws. That is a claim in the resolution, not a guarantee that awareness efforts will reduce deaths.

Case against#

  • The resolution only encourages outreach. It does not require any branch or government office to act, so awareness efforts may be limited or uneven.
  • It provides no funding, outreach plan or way to check whether the designation changes public awareness or behavior.
  • The resolution does not explain the protections’ detailed limits, so the designation alone may not tell people when those protections apply.