California Students Wrote Law Protecting Overdose Victims

TJ McGee lay seizing on his UC Berkeley dorm room floor while his roommates faced an impossible choice: call for help and risk his academic future, or wait and hope he survived.

That terrifying hesitation is exactly what inspired a group of California college students to write their own law. Assembly Bill 602, signed in October 2024 and taking effect this July, requires all California public universities to offer rehabilitation services before taking any disciplinary action against students who overdose.

The students who drafted it knew the problem firsthand. Saanvi Arora lost a close friend to overdose at 15. Aditi Hariharan watched a high school friend struggle with alcohol addiction in college, unable to access recovery resources, and eventually drop out.

After McGee's overdose, UC Berkeley placed him on academic probation with no support. He spent months crawling through recovery alone, as he told lawmakers, "holding his education together with duct tape and desperation."

Under existing campus policies, students caught using substances can be removed from housing after one violation and expelled from campus entirely after a second. That creates a deadly calculation when someone needs emergency help.

"They would much rather just see what happens and hope that they're OK," Arora explained. "Leave it up to fate, honestly, than call or go downstairs and bring a trusted campus official to help them."

The students reached out to San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney, who agreed the problem was both urgent and solvable. Together, they crafted legislation that prioritizes saving lives over punishment.

The final law isn't blanket amnesty. It limits overdose protections to once per academic term and doesn't extend to bystanders who call for help, changes made after university officials raised concerns about the original draft.

Six UC campuses already run collegiate recovery programs, and the law builds on that foundation. Cal State is still developing its systemwide implementation plan, with officials assessing how to structure rehabilitation services across all campuses.

The Ripple Effect

This student-written law could transform how colleges nationwide approach substance use emergencies. When young people see that seeking help leads to treatment rather than punishment, they're more likely to make the call that saves a life.

The law's impact extends beyond individual students to reshape campus culture around addiction and recovery. Universities that once treated overdoses primarily as disciplinary issues must now lead with compassion and support.

Starting this summer, every student at California's 33 public universities will have a legal right to treatment before facing consequences. For McGee, Arora, Hariharan, and countless students who've lost friends to overdoses, that right could mean the difference between life and death.

"You can't engage in recovery if you're already dead," Hariharan said simply.