The Mercury News: Baby Phoenix’s fentanyl overdose death inspires state legislation to protect opioid’s youngest victims

In an effort to reverse an alarming trend of fentanyl overdose deaths among infants and toddlers, state Sen. Dave Cortese has introduced legislation intended to provide counties with better tools to protect the Golden State’s youngest opioid victims.

The San Jose Democrat said his legislation was inspired by ongoing reporting by the Bay Area News Group about the deaths of three Bay Area infants and toddlers, including 3-month-old baby Phoenix Castro, of San Jose, who was sent home with her drug-using father last year despite warnings from social workers.

Cortese called on the state’s Department of Public Health to release guidance, data and informational materials to counties about how to deal with fentanyl exposure among California’s youngest residents.

Although he provided no specific proposals, preferring to leave it to health experts, Cortese suggested delaying the reunification of children younger than 5 and with parents who have substance abuse issues.

“Public health is as close as we’re gonna get to a statewide agency that can actually step in and say, we’re going to take the best practices, the best criteria, the best guidelines … (and) export those across all 58 counties,”  Cortese said.

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