STAND. COM. REP. 2309

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2004

RE: S.B. No. 2154

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 2154 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Department of Health for evidence-based substance abuse prevention programs.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Health, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Drug Policy Action Group, and the Community Alliance on Prisons.

Your Committee finds that scientific literature suggests that best practices drug prevention programs do much more than prevent drug abuse because they target the causes of drug abuse, crime, and delinquency. Other beneficial outcomes such as decreasing teen smoking results. Your Committee further finds that prevention is an effective and less expensive alternative to incarceration.

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. 2154 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

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

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair