STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1782

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2025

RE: S.B. No. 1433

S.D. 2

H.D. 2

Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Madame:

Your Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 1433, S.D. 2, H.D. 1, 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; Hep Free Hawaii; Hawai‘i Health & Harm Reduction Center; Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition; and numerous individuals. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from Hawaii Patriot Republicans. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General.

Your Committee finds that syringe exchange programs are a cost-effective means of preventing the spread of bloodborne infections like HIV and Hepatitis C, reducing drug use and drug overdoses, and protecting the public and first responders by providing safe syringe disposal. Your Committee further finds that, despite support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending a needs-based approach to syringe distribution, Hawaii is one of only two states that continue to impose a strict one-to-one sterile needle and exchange limit, which can leave some syringe exchange program participants without enough syringes and needles to use new sterile equipment each time they inject. This measure seeks to improve public health by updating state law to align with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to allow for needs-based syringe distribution for syringe exchange program participants.

Your Committee has amended this measure by 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 Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1433, S.D. 2, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1433, S.D. 2, H.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs,

____________________________

DAVID A. TARNAS, Chair