House panel passes $19M anti-ice bill

By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Capitol Bureau

The state would spend an additional $19 million to expand substance abuse treatment, prevention and other programs to address Hawai'i's crystal methamphetamine problem, under a bill advanced by the House Finance Committee yesterday.

The amount approved by the committee is slightly less than the $21.6 million called for in the original bill, which resulted from a joint House-Senate task force on the drug that held statewide hearings before the session.

Although the state won't be able to address all the community's needs, the bill is "at least a first step to ... making a more substantial effort to deal with the necessary treatment and prevention to deal with the situation," said committee chairman Dwight Takamine, D-1st (N. Hilo, Hamakua, N. Kohala).

House Bill 2004 now goes to the full House for a floor vote.

Meanwhile, the Senate Ways and Means Committee pushed forward a companion bill, Senate Bill 3234, that would provide the original $21.6 million. The committee also added to the measure several provisions, including spending about $2 million more to expand other initiatives such as the judiciary's family drug court and the federal Weed & Seed program.

The House and Senate bills also would provide tax credits to people who lease property to be used as drug rehabilitation homes, to employers who provide employees free drug-abuse prevention education and to employers who hire those referred from community-based treatment programs.

The state tax director estimated the credits would cost the state about $2.6 million a year in lost revenues.

Exactly how much money the Legislature will appropriate for programs to battle crystal methamphetamine will likely not be finalized until later this session.

The Ways and Means committee also advanced a proposal that would increase the tobacco tax by another half-cent, to 7.5 cents a cigarette, and deposit one cent of the tax into an ice treatment and prevention special fund. That would give the special fund an estimated $12 million for anti-crystal methamphetamine programs.

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8070.