 Welcome back to part two of the Vermont House Human Services Committee on Wednesday, May 12th. And this part of our meeting, we will be hearing and talking with legislative counsel, Michelle Child, as she reports to us and goes over the amendment that has been suggested, well, the amendment that has been passed by Senate Judiciary and presented on the Senate floor today positively. So it's going now for third reading. Committee, do you wanna see the language? Julie, is the language on the committee webpage? Yes, it is. Okay, so why not? For those who were listening on YouTube, the language is on the Human Services Committee webpage. Michelle, I think it's probably fine to go over the three concepts. And folks, if you wanna look at the language, why don't you go on the webpage in case we have questions? Thank you, Michelle. Sure. So the committee made, Senate Judiciary made three changes to the House version. The first change was in section one in the intent section and in the intent section in the House passed version, it said it's the intention of the General Assembly to decriminalize possession of 224 milligrams or less of the Puprenorphine. And they changed it to say that it is the intent to remove criminal penalties for possession of 224 milligrams or less. So just not a substantive change, but something that they were more comfortable with in terms of language. The second change is that- Sorry, Michelle, I was just gonna say, I think that that intent was potentially a holdover from the first iteration of the bill when it left House Judiciary and there was a larger amount. I don't know. That may, I have to say, it's all a blur at this point. And a lot of versions of this one. So that may be true. The second change is that they have added a sunset. And so the proposal, so this will take effect, actually, I'll couple it, is they made it effective on passage. So I guess that's the second change. And they made it effective on passage. The House version was the default of July 1st, but they said, if it's gonna save lives, let's get it working as soon as possible. And then the third change is that they put in a sunset. So it'll take effect upon passage and then it will sunset July 1st, 2023. So essentially in two years. And so you'll have an opportunity that legislative year to take a look and see whether or not you think it still makes sense and you can eliminate that sunset or extend it if you choose. And that's it. I have to admit, I'm pleasantly surprised and given the fact that this was not on the pre-agreed upon list of bills that the Senate would necessarily take up this year since it passed after crossover date. And there seemed to be a time when it was going to stay there. And now it passed. So we've got some questions. Jessica, represent Bromstead and Representative Wood. Thought Representative Wood, I think you raised your hand first if you wanna go first. I just a quickie, it's more of a process question. I've always wondered about this. You see sunsets every once in a while in bills. How do we remember that in 2023, we wanna look at this and not just like, is there any sort of tickler for sunsets so that people know? Oh, you better take a look at this so it doesn't just go away. So I will have to check, I'll double-check but I think we keep an internal list of sunsets. And so we keep in contact with our chairs around certain provisions that we know are gonna sunset. And those are kept, we also include that in our act summaries so that they're specific so you can kind of always be able to find in the act summary whether or not something has a sunset date. And then also usually, there's advocates and people who are tracking these things that make us well aware beforehand, that something's coming up and we need to put it on the list to take a look at it. So I think in the past, we haven't had all those kind of safeguards but I think in more recent years, we've been doing that because the use of the sunsets has really, I think probably increased over the last several years and there's so many and you're right, it would be easy to lose track of that. That's good to know. Cause I think that it makes sense to have sunsets. It does make us look back and make sure that everything we intended is actually happening and that it's working well. It's just that it is important for us to know about it so we don't just let something slip. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just curious, Michelle, in that first instance of amendment, decriminalized versus removed criminal penalties, is there a nuance that I'm not understanding? So what is the nuance that is changing that language? Does it say the same thing in different words or is it saying something slightly different? I think it's open to interpretation. I think we use the word decriminalized oftentimes when it means removing criminal penalties. So the substitute language is exactly what that means but sometimes when we've used the word decriminalized like when you, in 2013, you decriminalized cannabis but you didn't remove all the penalties. You substituted civil penalties for criminal penalties in that particular case. You're not doing this here. And so Senator Sears is like, well it's more akin to legalization than decriminalization but legalization is sometimes can be kind of a it sounds as though it's more like an affirmative statement rather than you're just taking punishments away. And so usually the terminology that we use is either decriminalized or removal of criminal or in the case of legalization, removal of criminal and civil penalties. So. Okay, so when I work. Okay, okay. They all work. Just wanted to, it was obviously important to somebody so I wanted to understand. Senator Sears I think was, I think particularly at the beginning where he started out, I think he's talked about he started out not supporting the idea. And he was like, well this isn't decriminalized because it's actually legalized because you're removing all penalties and there's no penalties. And I get, I think it's in some ways it's a little bit semantics but I certainly see his point and he was more comfortable with the saying just removal of criminal penalties. So they're all correct. Okay, thank you. Right. Other questions, thoughts about what the Senate has done. Have, has done. Representative Whitman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Representative Bromstead and Representative Wood both asked my other questions I was going to ask. I'll just say I'm supportive of the effective on passage. Good change. Basically, because I think next week where I understand it is right now is that Senator Sears reported it on the Senate floor today. It will be up for third reading and passage tomorrow which is Friday. There will be a token session or does it have, or does it wait a day? It will. So it'll be third reading tomorrow then it waits a day. So then it will be up for action. We unnotice on Monday, which we don't meet but we're moving the calendar ahead. So doing calendar math, it would be up for action on Tuesday. And given that if people are comfortable and assuming that I don't come back to you with Michelle, with something has happened on third reading which we don't imagine it will, I would entertain, I'd like to take a straw poll and have people raise their hand if they support us concurring with the Senate proposal of amendment. If you could raise your hand, your little yellow hand. Okay, and mine too. I didn't print. Okay, thank you. And I have Representative Gregoire, I will check in with him in terms of that. We have a few days for that. So unless there is any change, I will let the speaker know that we are ready to do it on Tuesday. And similar to what we did with the PFAS bill, this is a strike all. So it looks like there are more changes than in fact, there really are. And so I'll just try to make sure that that's clear. One thing that I will just mention and is that just in case folks on the floor get confused all is just a reminder about the way that we do sunsets now is you actually repeat the language showing the way that it would look at the time it's repealed and then you have that take effect. So sometimes people get a little confused about why is that language the same in two sections and different effective dates and that's just the way that we do sunsets now. In the old days, we used to say those changes are repealed but we have a different process now but sometimes it can be tricky on the floor. Okay, okay, thank you. Michelle, thank you. Thank you very much. Good to see you again. Appreciate your work. Nice to see you. Okay, bye-bye. Bye.