A prescription drug bill designed to reduce opioid abuse is growing daily.

The House Human Services Committee, with help from the House Judiciary Committee, is attempting legislative alchemy, melding two bills and one new initiative into H.331. The combined bill is an attempt to stave off opioid abuse at several stages, including the time at which a prescription is written and the moments following an overdose.

The original bill focused on stepping up usage of the Vermont Prescription Monitoring System.

But on Wednesday, the committee stitched a new section onto H.331 that establishes a program to allow the general public to administer drugs that can reverse opioid overdoses. The drugs are called “opioid antagonists”: Narcan, also known as Naloxone, is the most common one. Currently, only physicians and paramedics can administer Narcan in Vermont.

The number of deaths due to overdose in Vermont has fluctuated between 65 and 107 per year over the last decade, according to Department of Health data. There was a spike in 2011, when there were 107 deaths. The majority of overdoses involve opioids, which include drugs such as hydrocodone, oxycodone and oxymorphone.

H.331 sets up a program, overseen by the Department of Health, that would allow physicians to distribute the opioid antagonist drugs to people who are at risk of an overdose, as well as their family and friends. Other people who frequently encounter overdoses, such as emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and law enforcement, would also have access to the drug.

Doctors and administrators of similar programs in Massachusetts and Chicago gave strong endorsements of the strategy.

Donna Lemieux, a recovering heroin addict living in Vermont, told the committee that Narcan saved her life.

“I have overdosed three times, and during one of which my heart stopped beating for 6 minutes and 11 seconds. Narcan is what brought me back to at the hospital.”

Department of Health Commissioner, Harry Chen, said he supports setting up a pilot initiative because it offers people one more tool to an “important harm reduction strategy.”

“It’s not a magic bullet,” Chen told the committee. “Everything Nalaxone does, you can do with rescue breathing.”

Chen said he is also concerned that people will be less inclined to call 911 after administering the drug because the immediate crisis will have been averted.

Capt. Dan Troidl, who is commander of the Special Investigations unit at the Vermont State Police, told the committee, “We are fully supportive if this is going to save lives.” But, Troidl added, state troopers won’t have much use for it because they traverse such large areas that they would rarely arrive at the scene of an overdose in time to administer it.

Leo Beletsky, an assistant professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University who is familiar with the Massachusetts program, said distributing Narcan is “especially critical” in rural areas where emergency response times are slower.

Another bill, H.65, which would grant limited immunity to people who report drug overdoses, will also be tacked onto H.331. Legislators hope it will reduce the disincentives for people to seek emergency help when someone overdoses.

Stephen Prevost, another recovering addict, said his friend abandoned him on a couch after he overdosed. He might have stayed, Prevost told the committee, had H.65 been in place and if he’d had Narcan at his disposal.

“I don’t see how you can not pass this. I don’t see how this can not be a part of this bill.”

The other bill getting added to the expanding pages of H. 331 is H.212, which sets up an electronic registry system to monitor the sales of allergy medicines like Sudafed, whose active ingredients can be used to make crystal meth. The bill, which hinges upon a free-of-charge electronic monitoring system, prohibits pharmacists from knowingly selling more than 3.6 grams of these products the same day to an individual without a prescription.

Correction: Physicians and paramedics can administer Naloxone. It was originally reported that only physicians could administer it.