The Indiana House has passed an extension to the state’s Lifeline Law, sending it to the governor’s desk for signature.
The state’s current law, passed in 2012, grants criminal immunity to anyone who calls 911 to ask for help for someone drinking underage and experiencing a medical emergency. The expansion aims to also protect the person drinking.
“Currently, the person in need of medical attention is not protected,” Purdue University Student Body Vice President Rebecca Siener, a junior, said.
She spent some of her college career as a resident assistant.
“Our students are more fearful of the repercussions of underage drinking than the potentially life threatening condition of alcohol poisoning,” Siener said.
She, along with her fellow student government leaders, spent the last year trying to get protection for all parties. She said she also assisted in writing the new legislation.
Siener watched the House pass the expansion in an 87-3 vote on Thursday. It passed in the Senate earlier this session.
“The last step is the signing ceremony,” Siener said. “The governor has the option to veto it, but we don’t see him vetoing it, and then it will go into effect July 1 of 2025, and we will have changed state law.”
The new changes may soon be etched in law, but Siener says she stands on the backs of students who came before her. In 2012, when the Lifeline Law first passed, it was Purdue student government leaders who pushed for the change.
“The former Purdue Student Body President Brett Highley came up with the idea of the Indiana Lifeline Law and having a medical amnesty policy within Indiana and they proposed this to former Sen. (Jim) Merritt,” Seiner said. “Former Sen. Merritt agreed to author it.”
Purdue students formed the Indiana Lifeline Law Coalition to get the original law passed. It’s made up of college students at various Indiana universities united in advocating for the policy.
The coalition still stands today.
“Here we are, 12 years later, trying to expand it,” Siener said. “If students could change law in 2012 to save lives, we can do so, and, we will do so, again in 2025.”
Kyla Russell wrote this article for WISH-TV.
6 comments
If you pass this under age drinking is going yo skyrocket! You’ve taken away natural consequences of breaking the law and what binge drinking does to you. They have the age limit set where it is because children don’t and can’t make good choices about things like alcohol and drugs because that part of their brain is not developed enough. They actually are saying not until age 25. Don’t pass this law. There still needs to be consequences to help detour kids from partying and over drinking to save their lives. The law of under aged drinking needs to be upheld to make them think twice about doing it which will save more lives than letting them off the hook!
#BEAWARE!ZEROTOLERANCETOSEXTRAFFICKING#LEAVEOURKIDSALONE!2025
So basically, if you drink enough to get drunk and get caught you are in deep you know what. But if you binge drink to the point of needing medical attention, thats ok. Am i the only one that sees a problem with this?
Yep, right after tattoo face gets a sex change and every hostile foreign invader gets a license. Way to become a shit hole Indiana.
So basically Indiana says it’s ok for kids to drink as long medical attention?
Seriously people, get off your self righteous high horses. This proposed expansion to the Lifeline Law is an attempt to save lives that could otherwise be lost. Some college kids would be more afraid of how an arrest may adversely and permanently effect their career choices and possible doctorate choices and therefore refuse the medical care they desperately need to save their life. It never fails to amaze how the law determines a child is an adult at 18 years and can make any and all legal decisions for them selves, not to mention that they can legally purchase and shoot a firearm and be trained and equiped with various military weapons (including weapons of mass destruction) and be sent to defend other countries only to return in body bag. But GOD forbid if they drink alcohol prior to their 21st birthday. Arrest them immediately just because they consumed it and it will now remain on their permanent record and follow them the rest of their lives even though there were no other laws broken. Hospitals and EMT’s should be exempt from reporting underage drinking, if they aren’t already.