STAND

 

STAND. COM. REP. NO. 233

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2005

RE: H.B. No. 682

H.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred H.B. No. 682 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO A CONTINUUM OF HEALTH CARE SETTINGS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to:

(1) Provide that clean and sober homes for adults recovering from substance abuse are a residential use of property and a permitted or conditional use in residential zones; and

(2) Allows the Department of Health (DOH) to license special treatment facilities and therapeutic living programs; and

(3) Repeals the provision allowing drug rehabilitation houses as a permitted use in residential zones from Act 44, Session Laws of Hawaii 2005, the "ice" bill.

The Department of Health and a concerned individual testified in support of this bill.

Your Committees find that with the increase of residential treatment programs, therapeutic living programs, and clean and sober housing programs designed to help rehabilitate individuals addicted to drugs and alcohol, regulations should be created to provide for the safety, welfare, and health of patients receiving rehablitative services. This bill will allow DOH to license and thus regulate these programs.

Your Committees have amended this bill by:

(1) Recognizing that not all clients in therapeutic living programs come "from a more restrictive treatment setting" by deleting this phrase from the defintion of "therapeutic living program";

(2) Changing the effective date to January 1, 2020, to promote further discussion; and

(3) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for clarity, consistency, and style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 682, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 682, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Health and Human Services,

 

____________________________ ALEX M. SONSON, Chair		____________________________ DENNIS A. ARAKAKI, Chair