STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1310

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2025

RE: S.B. No. 1433

S.D. 2

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. 1433, S.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HARM REDUCTION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to improve the safety, effectiveness, and cost savings of the State's Sterile Needle and Syringe Exchange Program by amending the program based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's model legislation.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health; Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition; Hep Free Hawaii; O‘ahu Youth Action Board; Hawai‘i Health & Harm Reduction Center; Maui AIDS Foundation; R Street Institute; and five individuals. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Hawaii Patriot Republicans and numerous individuals.

Your Committee finds that, in recognition of the dangers to public health posed by the sharing of injection equipment by injectable drug users, the Legislature passed Act 152, Sessions Laws of Hawaii 1992, which established the first state-funded Sterile Needle and Syringe Exchange Program in the United States. Your Committee further finds that a 2020 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concluded that syringe programs that restrict syringe distribution to a one-to-one exchange are less effective than needs-based distribution systems. The CDC found that, compared to one-to-one exchanges, needs-based syringe distributions result in less syringe sharing and reuse, lower risks of infection, and are not associated with increased unsafe syringe disposal. Your Committee believes that updating the State's strict one-to-one sterile needle and syringe limit to a needs-based distribution system will better serve the public health and improve the effectiveness of the State's Sterile Needle and Syringe Exchange Program.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

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

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

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. 1433, S.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1433, S.D. 2, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs.

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

____________________________

GREGG TAKAYAMA, Chair