The Overdose RADAR Act is a public health bill aimed at improving how the U.S. tracks and responds to the opioid overdose crisis. It authorizes federal grants to states, cities, and K–12 schools to better collect overdose data, improve postmortem testing, and equip schools with emergency overdose-reversal treatments like naloxone. The bill also creates a 3-year pilot program using wastewater analysis to detect the presence of fentanyl and similar drugs in local communities. On the legal side, it removes fentanyl test strips from the list of items that can trigger a denial of federal benefits under drug laws — a change that supports harm-reduction efforts. Finally, it tightens oversight of the Office of National Drug Control Policy by requiring interagency coordination, national reporting standards, and making funding transfers harder to approve without review.
Average Household Impact
- School emergency overdose-response capacity — Grants fund naloxone supply and trained personnel at public and private K–12 schools
Criminal Justice & Due Process
- Federal-benefits denial for fentanyl test strip possession — Test strips removed from the CSA denial-of-benefits list, reducing collateral consequences for harm-reduction tool use
Transparency & Accountability
- ONDCP interagency coordination requirements — Agencies must document deduplication strategies and establish uniform national data standards
- Congressional Review Act oversight — Drug-control rules not certified by ONDCP Director are automatically subject to congressional review
- Agency fund-transfer default — Reprogramming and transfer requests that go unaddressed now default to denied rather than approved
- State grantee reporting requirements — State Opioid Response recipients must report on implementation challenges and best practices
Congressional Summary
Overdose Response Action Data for Actionable Reforms Act or the Overdose RADAR ActThis bill explicitly exempts the sale of fentanyl test strips from criminal penalties under federal law. It also establishes grants and expands agency efforts to treat opioid overdoses and improve related monitoring and data.Specifically, the bill exempts the sale, interstate transportation, import, or export of fentanyl test strips from criminal penalties under the Controlled Substances Act. (Fentanyl test strips are used to detect the presence of fentanyl in drugs.)Additionally, the bill allows the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to provide grants for trained personnel at elementary and secondary schools to administer drugs and devices for emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdoses. The bill also expands existing SAMHSA grants to allow state, local, and tribal entities to provide training to health care providers on how to administer such drugs and devices. Also, SAMHSA may award grants to state and local entities to improve data and surveillance (e.g., postmortem toxicology testing) on opioid-related overdoses. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must temporarily award grants to municipal wastewater treatment facilities to analyze the prevalence of illicit substances (e.g., fentanyl) in wastewater. Finally, the Office of National Drug Control Policy must issue guidance for states and localities that overdose deaths should be recorded as homicides if there is evidence that the overdose was not self-induced and intentional.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in Senate
- Action Date
- 2025-02-24
- Date Added
- 2026-04-30
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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