The Vermont House has advanced legislation that would decriminalize small amounts of buprenorphine despite opposition from Health Commissioner Mark Levine.
On Thursday, the House voted 126-19 in favor of H.225, which would decriminalize possession of the prescription drug used to treat opioid dependence.
Under the proposal, people would be able to possess up to 224 milligrams of the substance — or about two weeks’ worth of a prescription — even if they don’t have permission from a doctor.
Rep. Ann Pugh, D-South Burlington, the chair of the House Committee on Human Services, said Thursday the bill would “support and encourage Vermonters seeking safer alternatives to manage their substance use disorders.”
“It’s a path toward entering medically supervised treatment, and it will save lives,” Pugh said, addressing legislators on the virtual House floor.
Decriminalizing buprenorphine has been debated in the Vermont Statehouse over the past three legislative sessions. In 2020, a similar bill appeared close to House passage, but it was sidelined after the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
Levine has consistently opposed the effort over the years. In 2019, he said that, while he would support similar decriminalization efforts in any other state, he wouldn’t in Vermont. His reasoning: The state had no waiting lists for substance use disorder treatment, so there was no need to legalize possession of the drug without a prescription.
On Tuesday, Levine submitted written testimony to the committee echoing his statement from two years ago.
“If I were commissioner of any other state in the U.S. I would be unequivocally for this bill as a potentially important public health measure, knowing there would still be uncertainty,” he wrote. “But this is Vermont. We do not know what ‘flooding the streets’ with buprenorphine (as some have characterized this strategy) means in a state with no waiting lists and true capacity to treat all.”
Levine added that his understanding is that most people using buprenorphine are on Medicaid and are therefore poorer Vermonters who are more likely to sell the narcotic.
“This bill would further increase demand on the street and increase the risk that a patient sells their drugs for the cash,” he said.
Levine may not have changed his views on decriminalizing buprenorphine, but neither did the House.
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