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 S.B. No. 958 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 Pharmacy, Board of Medical Examiners, Hawaii Medical Service Association, The Queen's Medical Center, Hawaii Pharmacists Association, Planned Parenthood of Hawaii, Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, Community Alliance on Prisons, American Friends Service Committee, The First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii, Kaiser Permanente, Hawaii Medical Assocation, and eight individuals.

Your Committees find that emergency contraceptives 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 the lack of availability of a patient's 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:

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 S.B. No. 958, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 958, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.