A Hawaii House committee has amended and passed a Senate-approved bill to support clinical research on psychedelic-assisted therapies using substances such as psilocybin and MDMA.
On Friday, the House Health Committee unanimously advanced the legislation, SB 1042, from Sen. Chris Lee (D), after first making a number of changes suggested by the Office of Wellness and Resilience, most notably replacing a special fund with a two-year pilot program.
The action comes about a week after the full Senate passed an earlier version of the psychedelics measure.
As approved by the Senate, the proposal would establish a state “mental health emerging therapies special fund,” which could be used to subsidize clinical trials, establish public-private research partnerships and eventually develop state programs around patient access for “compassionate use.”
Some lawmakers and executive agencies, however, expressed concern that the plan wouldn’t comply with state criteria for special funds, specifically a requirement that special funds “be financially self-sustaining.”
Under the Senate-passed version, money for the fund would come either from appropriations by the legislature or from gifts, donations or grants from public agencies or private entities. The bill itself earmarks no money for the account.
Amendments approved on Friday by the House committee instead change the structure of the bill to create a two-year pilot program, which would be organized under the Office of Wellness and Resilience (OWR) rather than under the state Department of Health, as the Senate-passed plan would do.
The pilot program would be funded through a million-dollar annual investment from the legislature, which could be matched in private funds. Overall, that could mean $4 million in total funding over the span of the pilot.
“Based on our proposed amendments, the pilot program would consist of the research study, education and training,” explained Trina Orimoto, OWR’s deputy director, in response to questions from lawmakers. The office would also submit its findings in a report to the legislature.
“The research study is the biggest crux of the pilot program,” Orimoto added, noting that it would be operated under “all of the necessary supervision of the DEA and institutional review boards and have all of those controls.”
As defined in the text of both the Senate-passed and House committee-amended measures, “emerging therapies” refers to psychedelic or entactogenic substances that are either approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or under Hawaii state law as well as compounds undergoing FDA-approved clinical trials.
“Compassionate use,” meanwhile, would mean “treating patients suffering from terminal or life-threatening conditions,” including treatment-resistant mental health conditions.
Before Friday’s vote, committee chair Rep. Gregg Takayama (D) encouraged members to report the bill favorably.
“Frankly, I’ve wrestled with this bill,” he said. “Given the state’s financial situation, now is really not the time to start any new programs that require substantial appropriations. But I also believe we owe something to the military veterans who are undergoing PTSD and other traumas.”
Rep. Ikaika Olds (D) thanked colleagues and commenters for supporting the proposal.
“It’s personal to me. I had to leave the room. Thank you for your very powerful testimony,” he said. “A good buddy of mine, we dodged the bombs and the bullets in Iraq and came home, and he lost that battle later on. So thank you.”
Though the bill doesn’t list specific conditions, a report from the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, which previously advanced the plan, mentions depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and PTSD as “widespread and affecting millions worldwide and many in the State’s community.”
A report from a second Senate panel that approved the bill, the Committee on Ways and Means, says that “the special fund established and research supported by this measure will help facilitate patient access to innovative mental health treatments.”
The new amendments to the bill were submitted by OWR as part of more than 100 pages of written testimony received by the House committee from state agencies, advocacy groups and interested individuals, including a number of veterans and their families who shared what they described as life-changing experiences with therapeutic psychedelics.
Notably, none of the written comments or oral testimony at Friday’s hearing were in opposition to the proposal.
With regard to the Senate-approved special fund, the state Department of Budget and Finance in its written comments said that as a general rule, it doesn’t support the creation of special funds that don’t conform with Hawaii’s criteria for establishing new funds, one of which is that they demonstrate “the capacity to be financially self sustaining.”
“Regarding SB No. 1042,” the agency testimony says, “it is difficult to determine whether the proposed special fund would be self-sustaining.”
The state Department of the Attorney General similarly pointed to Hawaii’s special fund criteria, writing that “We suggest adding a purpose section to the bill that explains how the fund meets the requirements of [the state’s criteria for special funds].”
Neither agency took a formal position on the bill, and the amendments approved by the House committee appear to address the agencies’ core concerns.
Joint written testimony from the groups Reason for Hope and the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition (VMHLC) echoed comments the groups made to Senate lawmakers, calling the legislation “a bold and necessary step toward addressing the urgent mental health needs of our Veterans.”
“Hawaii can become a national leader in providing access to innovative, life-saving treatments for those who have selflessly served our country,” the organizations said, noting that traditional treatments for conditions such as PSTD and severe forms of depression have not been sufficient for many veterans and first responders.
The Senate last month also narrowly defeated a separate proposal that would have increased fivefold the amount of cannabis that a person could possess without risk of criminal charges. The body voted 12–11 against the decriminalization measure, SB 319, from Sen. Joy San Buenaventura (D).
Had the measure become law, it would have increased the amount of cannabis decriminalized in Hawaii from the current 3 grams up to 15 grams. Possession of any amount of marijuana up to that 15-gram limit would have been classified as a civil violation, punishable by a fine of $130.
Among the groups who supported the measure were the Community Alliance on Prisons, Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), ACLU of Hawai’i, the Hawai’i Alliance for Cannabis Reform.
A separate Senate bill that would have legalized marijuana for adults, meanwhile, stalled for the session. That measure, SB 1613, had yet to make it out of its current committee despite a legislative deadline last month.
While advocates feel there’s sufficient support for the legalization proposal in the Senate, it’s widely believed that House lawmakers would ultimately scuttle the measure, as they did lasts month with a legalization companion bill, HB 1246.
Some observers pointed out that there may still be legislative maneuvers available to revive the Senate legalization bill this session, though it’s unclear whether lawmakers will pursue them.
Last session, a Senate-passed legalization bill also fizzled out in the House.
The House vote to stall the bill came just days after approval from a pair of committees at a joint hearing. Ahead of that hearing, the panels received nearly 300 pages of testimony, including from state agencies, advocacy organizations and members of the public.
Separately in Hawaii, the House Committee on Labor in January unanimously voted to advance legislation that would protect state-registered medical marijuana patients from discrimination in the workplace. That bill, HB 325, has not yet been taken up in the Senate.
This past fall, regulators solicited proposals to assess the state’s current medical marijuana program—and also sought to estimate demand for recreational sales if the state eventually moves forward with adult-use legalization. Some read the move as a sign the regulatory agency saw a need to prepare to the potential reform.
Hawaii was the first U.S. state to legalize medical marijuana through its legislature, passing a law in 2000.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia/Workman.
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