[T]he Senate has advanced legislation intended to unify and strengthen Vermont’s addiction-prevention efforts.
The Senate on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to S.146. The bill pools resources and personnel from several entities that concentrate on opioids, alcohol, tobacco and other substances, and it establishes a new Substance Misuse Prevention Advisory Council tasked with “consolidating oversight” of the state’s prevention programs.
Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden and chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, told senators that the state needs to devote more resources to preventing substance misuse, especially among youth.
“We do have wonderful programs in our state that are working,” Lyons said. “But they are not coordinated, they are not systematic and they are not eliminating substance misuse.”
Lyons said her committee has been discussing prevention “for several years,” but there are recent issues that have intensified that conversation. The state’s move toward a legalized, regulated marijuana system is one of those issues.
Vermont also is continuing to struggle with fatal opioid overdoses, which increased slightly in 2018. And there is concern about stagnant adult smoking rates and increased use of e-cigarettes.
Lyons is particularly concerned about young people, as “misuse of substances early in life causes permanent changes to the brain.” That can lead to neurological impairment, behavioral issues and potentially to mental health issues, she said.
Despite such impacts, prevention work remains underfunded, Lyons said. She pointed in particular to dwindling funding for tobacco prevention, but she also said schools are “crying out” for more resources to prevent addiction.
“The state pays for intervention, the state pays for treatment, the state pays for recovery … the state is spending a lot of money after people are addicted,” Lyons said.
The focus of S.146 “is to begin to put a focus on common programs for prevention for all substances that might be misused,” she said. “What we are targeting are programs that will be effective, that will be evidence-informed and that will build a community effort to keep kids healthy.”
The bill would eliminate the state’s Tobacco Evaluation and Review Board as well as the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Council. The latter group would be replaced by the new misuse prevention advisory council.
Also, the bill would “redirect” money from the Opioid Coordination Council in order to fund two new positions – a director of substance misuse prevention in the Agency of Human Services, and a manager of substance misuse prevention in the Health Department.
The idea is to shift two positions away from the opioid council to focus more generally on prevention initiatives, so there’s no additional cost to the state for those jobs, according to a fiscal note on S.146.
The misuse prevention council is a primary feature of the bill. In addition to consolidating oversight of prevention programs, the council would provide advice for “improving prevention policies and programming throughout the state.”
The council’s work “shall encompass all substances at risk of misuse including tobacco, tobacco substitutes, cannabis, opioids and alcohol,” the bill says.
Lyons said her committee “worked very closely” with the Agency of Human Services and the Health Department to come up with recommendations for the realignment of state prevention programs and resources.
The Health Department supports the changes in the bill, a spokesperson said.
The initial version of S.146 included two additional revenue provisions.
One section said officials should “explore revenue generated by the taxation of substances such as cannabis, tobacco, tobacco substitutes and alcohol” to find money for prevention programs. Also, the bill appropriated up to $400,000 from a state “evidence-based education and advertising fund” in order to fund the new Substance Misuse Prevention Advisory Council.
However, lawmakers on Tuesday adopted an amendment deleting both of those provisions at the request of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Speaking for Appropriations, Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, said such funding decisions are best made later in the session when the Senate considers the fiscal year 2020 budget.
“That is not to say that we would not make an appropriation, but that the decision should be part of the larger budgetary balancing act,” McCormack said.
The bill’s new, more general language doesn’t specify a dollar amount and says officials will “explore funding opportunities for the prevention of substance misuse.”
