STAND. COM. REP. 2529

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2004

RE: S.B. No. 3234

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 3234 entitled:

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

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to implement the suggestions of the joint house-senate task force (task force) on ice and drug abatement.

Your Committee finds that the use of crystal methamphetamine (ice) has reached epidemic proportions. Ice has ruined lives, destroyed families, and wreaked havoc in our society, resulting in increased criminal activity and creating a burden on public resources such as child welfare, health, and social services agencies.

Ice addiction is a public health problem that has reached crisis proportions. Ice is now the number one illegal substance for which publicly funded treatment for addiction is sought, surpassing programs for alcohol abuse. Between 1998 and 2002, admissions into treatment programs for ice were phenomenal, increasing by at least eighty per cent.

The Legislature finds that early intervention is the key to diverting young adults from drug use. The treatment gap between the number of adolescents who need treatment and who do not receive it is over 5,000, based on both state and federal estimates.

The Legislature has adopted the following task force recommendations to combat the ice epidemic:

(1) Expanding school based treatment services to middle schools;

(2) Prioritizing funds for: drug education and awareness in the schools and community partnerships, non-school youth activities in communities with the greatest need, education and support for families and parenting women, and community mobilization;

(3) Prioritizing funds to ice abusers who are women of child bearing age, pregnant women, parents of young children in the home, and persons of Hawaiian ancestry;

(4) Diverting ice abusers into treatment rather than prison to more effectively treat their needs and to reduce recidivism;

(5) Funding treatment services for nonviolent first-time drug offenders to avoid imposing a greater burden on the State's prison system;

(6) Expanding the canine drug interdiction program;

(7) Expanding services provided by the drug courts, including family and juvenile drug courts;

(8) Providing for an environmental study on the effects of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories;

(9) Creating grant-in-aid opportunities for counties to fund grassroots community efforts with matching federal forfeiture funds;

(10) Adding to the duties of the office of community services to include coordination of drug abatement efforts on a statewide basis;

(11) Providing tax credits for the establishment of rehabilitation homes and for substance abuse prevention education and employment;

(12) Establishing a substance abuse treatment monitoring program requiring state agencies to collect data and assess program effectiveness;

(13) Creating a multi-agency task force to respond to the effects of ice on children; and

(14) Making various appropriations to finance these objectives.

Upon further consideration, and to strengthen this measure, your Committee has amended the bill by:

(1) Appropriating funds for the Adolescent Residential Treatment Facility to renovate two buildings in the Hanapepe area for the program;

(2) Authorizing the issuance of general obligation bonds for a substance abuse facility to service the 3,037 inmates that were identified in 2003 as needing substance abuse treatment;

(3) Appropriating funds to expand the Weed and Seed Program to prevent and control the proliferation of drug abuse in local neighborhoods;

(4) Appropriating funds for non-school-hour programs to provide a safe environment for children, free from the influences, temptations, and dangers related to illegal drugs;

(5) Appropriating funds for the Being Empowered and Safe Together Program on Maui to provide a supportive environment that assists former incarcerated individuals returning to the community to remain free from the influences, temptations, and dangers related to illegal drugs;

(6) Appropriating funds to expand the KASHBOX substance abuse treatment program at the Waiawa correctional center and to establish offender transitional services centers;

(7) Appropriating funds for the drug court programs in the second and third circuits; and

(8) Clarifying the role of the Department of Health in administering the substance abuse treatment monitoring program under section 25 of the measure.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3234, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3234, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair