Author: Tiffany P

HARRISBURG – The Overdose Mapping Act will soon head to the governor’s desk after unanimous concurrence in the Senate today, Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-33) said.

“Enhanced real-time tracking of spikes in overdose reports is a critical tool we can use to fight our ongoing opioid epidemic,” Mastriano said. “This bill catches us up to other states that have implemented similar technology to recognize alarming patterns in real time and save lives.”

Senate Bill 1152, introduced by Mastriano earlier this year, requires first responders – including law enforcement and emergency medical services – to report overdoses into an electronic statewide system that will be developed and maintained in consultation with the Department of Health.

Standardizing use of a statewide system will help local officials identify emerging trends, mobilize an emergency response and alert law enforcement and EMS to the existence of fentanyl-laced drugs in a particular region.

In 2021 alone, the CDC said more than 100,000 people died nationwide from fentanyl and opioid overdoses, a 15% increase over the year before. Pennsylvania ranks third nationwide for overdose fatalities.

“Drastic times call for drastic measures,” Mastriano said. “We can’t put out fires that we can’t see and consistently using a mapping tool like this will give our first responders the visibility they need to act quickly, save lives and make communities safer.”

SB 1152 passed the House of Representatives earlier Wednesday. It now awaits the governor’s signature.

CONTACT: Doug Zubeck

HARRISBURG – Parents, physicians and childhood advocates demanded action from state legislators this week to protect their kids from government intrusion and indoctrination, said Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-33).

“I introduced the Parental Bill of Rights after our governor and his administration orchestrated an unconstitutional takeover of our children’s health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said. “This legislation reaffirms what should go without saying, parents – and parents alone – are the first and last authority on raising their own kids.”

Testifiers told the Senate State Government Committee that the Department of Education and Gov. Tom Wolf wielded power and influence to overrule guidance from local health officials about in-person schooling and universal masking, leading to weeks of lost instruction and educational deficits that will profoundly scar an entire generation of children.

Worse still, the committee learned that Wolf and his allies dragged concerned parents to court where they rejected responsibility for the questionable guidance and policies proliferating across Pennsylvania schools.

Just some of the complaints parents lodged during the hearing include school libraries offering books so graphic and explicit that their contents can’t be shared in public settings; curriculum introducing kindergarteners to college-level theories on race and gender; teachers who want to withhold information about students’ mental health, sexual orientation or gender identity from their parents; and the privacy of biological girls in bathrooms and locker rooms taking a backseat to partisan ideology.

“The administration’s mask is off,” Mastriano said. “The last few years have proven that government bureaucrats can and will do whatever it takes to divide families and indoctrinate a generation of compliant, subservient supporters. I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the parents who refuse to toe the line and stay silent any longer.”

CONTACT: Doug Zubeck

HARRISBURG – Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-33) said today he will soon introduce legislation prohibiting pediatric gender transition surgeries as part of his efforts to protect Pennsylvania’s children from the unintended consequences of fringe progressive ideologies.

“These experimental medical procedures risk the health and wellbeing of our children,” Mastriano said. “I can’t stand by as medical providers across the country cave to the pressures of militant leftists committed to distorting the concept of gender so that it defies the bounds of science and logic.”

So far, Tennessee lawmakers have also announced plans to approve similar legislation in 2023. This comes three months after the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recommended hormone treatments in children as young as 14 and surgeries – including double mastectomies, hysterectomies and testicle removal – between the ages of 15 and 17.

“Kids are being coached into life-altering decisions without any evidence to support the safety or efficacy of these so-called treatments,” Mastriano said. “The medical community’s rush to embrace these procedures is disturbing and compels action from lawmakers to protect gender-questioning children, not experiment upon them.”

CONTACT: Doug Zubeck