STAND. COM. REP. NO. 562

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2005

RE: S.B. No. 1201

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 1201 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE ILLEGAL USE OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for state agencies and the counties for crystal methamphetamine (ice) treatment, prevention, rehabilitation, education, environmental damage assessment, and program monitoring initiatives.

The Department of the Attorney General, the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Education, one member of the Hawaii County Council, Drug Addiction Services of Hawaii, Inc., Community Alliance on Prisons, Hawaii Youth Services Network, Coalition For A Drug-Free Hawaii, Hawaii Juvenile Justice Project, Hina Mauka, and two individuals submitted testimony in support of this measure. The Department of Health and the Judiciary submitted comments.

Your Committees find that a joint house-senate task force convened public hearings in 2003 and found that ice use and abuse had reached epidemic proportions, destroying families and resulting in increased criminal activities as well as increasing the burden on public resources such as child welfare, health, and social services. The task force recommended the formulation of a multi-pronged approach that combined treatment, prevention, rehabilitation, public education, crime prevention, and law enforcement initiatives designed to prevent future generations from engaging in substance abuse as well as to treat the present generation of ice abusers. This measure sustains and expands these important efforts to ensure that this public health crisis does not fade into the background.

Upon further consideration, your Committees have made the following amendments:

(1) Removed sections 10, 11, 12, and 13, and any related language at the request of the Judiciary;

(2) In section 2, replaced lines 19-22 with "establish and sustain school-based treatment in all public high schools and all public middle and intermediate schools";

(3) In section 8, added "with an emphasis on native Hawaiian culturally based programs";

(4) Changed the Weed and Seed appropriation to a grant to the YMCA of Honolulu pursuant to chapter 42F and changed the language to read that the funds are "to maintain and enhance existing efforts at federally designated Weed and Seed sites, and to assist new communities in obtaining federal designation as Weed and Seed sites";

(5) Changed the "grant-in-aid" for the Being Empowered program to "grant" and "chapter 42D" to "chapter 42F" and specified that Maui Economic Opportunity, Inc. is the receiving agency; and

(6) Made technical and non-substantive amendments for

clarity and style.

Your Committees note that the monies under sections 10, 11, 12, and 13 duplicate monies requested in the Judiciary's appropriations bills and it requested support of its funding as included in those bills.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1201, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1201, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Chair

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair