STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1312

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2025

RE: S.B. No. 1042

S.D. 1

H.D. 1

Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Madame:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 1042, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MENTAL HEALTH,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish and appropriate funds for the Mental Health Emerging Therapies Special Fund.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Wellness and Resilience; Beyond Mental Health; Aloha Integrative Mental Health; MindWave Medicine; Clarity Project; Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition; Reason for Hope; Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions; Hawai‘i Health & Harm Reduction Center; and numerous individuals. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Budget and Finance and Department of the Attorney General.

Your Committee finds that there are a significant number of individuals, including a disproportionate number of veterans, who suffer from treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Your Committee further finds that the United States Food and Drug Administration has granted breakthrough therapy designation to emerging treatments, including psilocybin therapy and MDMA-assisted therapy, for treatment of various mental health and behavioral health disorders including addiction, treatment-resistant depression, eating disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Your Committee believes that there is significant value in exploring the use of these emerging therapies, which have demonstrated promising results when administered in clinical settings. However, your Committee believes that establishing a pilot program, rather than the special fund proposed by this measure, may be a more appropriate mechanism to allow the State to assess the feasibility, effectiveness, and accessibility of these emerging therapies.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Deleting the substantive contents of this measure and inserting language requiring the Office of Wellness and Resilience to conduct a two-year Mental Health Emerging Therapies Pilot Program to support clinical research and the development of emerging therapies for the treatment of mental health and behavioral health disorders and report to the Legislature;

(2) Inserting an unspecified appropriation amount for the Mental Health Emerging Therapies Pilot Program;

(3) Changing the effective date to July 1, 3000, to encourage further discussion; and

(4) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

Your Committee respectfully requests your Committee on Finance, should it deliberate on this measure, to consider an appropriation amount of $1,000,000.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1042, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1042, S.D. 1, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health,

____________________________

GREGG TAKAYAMA, Chair