Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing and Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 123, H.D. 1, entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to expand the practice of pharmacy under the pharmacist licensing law to include the dispensing of emergency contraceptives in accordance with a collaborative agreement approved by the Board of Pharmacy between a physician and an appropriately trained pharmacist.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the following: Department of Health, Board of Medical Examiners, Board of Pharmacy, Hawaii Medical Service Association, Kaiser Permanente, Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, Planned Parenthood of Hawaii, The First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, Community Alliance on Prisons, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Community Clinic of Maui, Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii, Hawaii Medical Association, Hawaii Pharmacists Association, and four individuals. Oral testimony in support of the measure was presented by an individual.

Testimony in opposition to the measure was submitted by Hawaii Catholic Conference, Hawaii Right to Life, Ohana Pregnancy Referrals, American Center for Law and Justice, Pro-Family Hawaii, and twelve individuals.

Your Committees find that over half of the 17,000 annual births in Hawaii and almost eighty per cent of Hawaii teen pregnancies are unintended. Unintended pregnancies are at higher risk for low birth weight, birth defects, infant death, maternal death and morbidity, and maternal and child abuse.

Your Committees further find that emergency contraceptives, which have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and which are available over the counter in several European nations, and through collaborative practice protocols in California and Washington, help to reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies. The drugs, which are not abortifacients, inhibit ovulation, fertilization or implantation in the womb, and do not disrupt an established pregnancy or harm a fetus. The drugs reduce a woman's risk of pregnancy by seventy-five to eighty-five per cent if used within seventy-two hours of unprotected sex, and are most effective when taken within twenty-four hours thereof.

Your Committees further find that there are barriers to accessing emergency contraceptives within these critical time periods, such as a woman's lack of access to her physician during nonoffice hours or the lack of a physician on site at pharmacies. This measure would improve access to emergency contraceptives and help to reduce the incidence of unplanned pregnancies by allowing appropriately trained pharmacists to prescribe the drugs pursuant to a collaborative agreement with a physician.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments to restore inadvertently deleted language that clarifies the definition of "licensed physician" under the pharmacist licensing law, to correctly reflect language in the Hawaii Revised Statutes, and to conform definitions.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 123, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 123, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.