Hawaii’s House of Representatives passed a bill creating a two year pilot program for clinical research in psychedelics-assisted therapy, which includes substances such as MDMA and psilocybin.
The House passed SB 1042 on Tuesday with 44-5 votes. Senate has already approved this proposal. It now goes back to the Senate for review of the amendments that were made by the House.
In a House Committee, for example, the bill structure was changed to establish a pilot program that would run for two years rather than establishing the program via a special state fund. The proposed system was moved to the Office of Wellness and Resilience, rather than under the Department of Health.
As approved by the Senate last month, by contrast, 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.”
A pilot program approved by the House would be funded with a one-million-dollar investment each year from the Legislature, and could also be matched through private funding. Over the course of the program, this could amount to $4 million.
According to the bill’s definition, emerging therapies are substances such as entactogenic or psychedelic drugs that have been approved either by the Food and Drug Administration or Hawaii State law or those currently undergoing FDA-approved trials.
“Compassionate Use” would mean treating patients with terminal or life-threatening illnesses, including mental conditions that resist treatment.
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.”
According to a report of a Senate committee that also approved the measure, the Committee on Ways and Means (CWM), “the research and special fund that will be established by this bill and supported through it will assist patients in accessing innovative mental healthcare treatments.”
As legislation progressed the lawmakers have received hundreds pages of written testimonies from state agencies and advocacy groups as well as interested individuals.
OWR will be in charge of overseeing the research on psychedelics. The bill, according to OWR “provides a significant opportunity for creating a path for those who need it to access innovative and possibly life-saving therapies for trauma and mental challenges within the context closely monitored clinical studies.”
Veterans advocacy groups, like Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, have voiced their support. They note that while other states have made important strides, Hawaii is in a position to make the next big leap forward when it comes to psychedelics.
“This would be a bold initiative—one that ensures veterans can access these therapies now while also contributing to the broader national conversation on how to best integrate psychedelic treatments into our healthcare system,” the group testified at a previous hearing. Hawaii can set the standard for psychedelic medical treatments.
Hawaii’s Senate approved a bill this week that would permit healthcare providers to prescribe cannabis as a treatment for whatever condition they think it will benefit. In addition to other modifications, it will redefine the term “debilitating health condition”, to include “any medical condition determined by a certifying doctor or registered advanced practitioner nurse as appropriate for medical cannabis use.”
This change could allow patients with conditions to access medical marijuana, even if they have not been recognized as such by the state.
Lawmakers also recently sent a bill to the governor that would help speed the expungement process for people hoping to clear their records of past marijuana-related offenses.
That measure, HB 132, from Rep. David Tarnas (D), would expedite expungements happening through a pilot program signed into law last year by Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat. This bill would eliminate the distinctions between marijuana, and Schedule V substances for purposes of the expulsion program.
Proponents of the bill claim that under current law, state officials are forced to manually comb through thousands criminal records in order to find those eligible for expulsion as part of the pilot program.
Hawaii’s Senate, in February of this year, narrowly defeated another proposal which would have allowed a person to possess five times as much cannabis without the risk of a criminal charge. The body voted 12–11 against the decriminalization measure, SB 319, from Sen. Joy San Buenaventura (D).
If the bill had become law, the amount of marijuana decriminalized would have been increased from 3 to 15 grams. Possession up to the 15-gram limit of marijuana was a civil infraction punishable by $130.
Separate Senate legislation that would legalize marijuana for adults has also been stalled. SB 1613 was still in its committee even though a deadline for the session had passed 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 last month with a legalization companion bill, HB 1246.
Although it is unclear if lawmakers will take advantage of these legislative maneuvers to resurrect the Senate bill on legalization, some observers believe that they may be available.
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. Before the hearing, nearly 300 pages were submitted by state agencies and advocacy organizations, as well as members of the general public.
Meanwhile, legislation is advancing this session to allow healthcare providers to recommend cannabis to treat any condition they believe it would benefit, instead of only those maladies on a specific list, as is the case under current law.
Separately, 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. The Senate has yet to take up the bill, HB 325.
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. Others interpreted the move to be a signal that regulators needed to get ready for the reform.
Hawaii became the first U.S. State to pass a medical marijuana law through its legislative branch in 2000.
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