1 1 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA 2 * * * * 3 House Bill 1692 4 Involuntary Treatment for Drug & Alcohol Addiction 5 * * * * 6 House Human Services Committee 7 Capitol Building 8 East Wing, Hearing Room 60 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 9 10 Thursday, June 23, 2016 - 9:00 a.m. 11 --oOo-- 12 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: 13 Honorable Gene DiGirolamo, Majority Chairman 14 Honorable Russ Diamond Honorable Joe Emrick 15 Honorable Tom Murt Honorable Eric Nelson 16 Honorable Jason Ortitay Honorable Tom Quigley 17 Honorable Mark M. Gillen Honorable Jack Rader 18 Honorable Brad Roae Honorable Craig Staats 19 Honorable Judith Ward Honorable Ryan Warner 20 Honorable Parke Wentling Honorable Martina White 21 Honorable David Zimmerman Honorable Jason Dawkins 22 Honorable Michael Driscoll Honorable Stephen Kinsey 23 Honorable Dan Miller Honorable Eddie Day Pashinski 24 25 1300 Garrison Drive, York, PA 17404 717.764.7801 Key Reporters [email protected] 2 1 INDEX OF TESTIFIERS 2 TESTIFIERS PAGE 3 Opening remarks by Majority Chairman 4 DiGirolamo............................ 4 5 Opening remarks by Representative Readshaw 6 6 Doctor Rachel Levine, Physician General 8 7 Deb Beck, President..................... 14 Drug & Alcohol Service Providers 8 Organization of PA 9 Dennis Troy, Mayor...................... 29 Brentwood Borough 10 David Freed, District Attorney.......... 36 11 Cumberland County 12 13 SUBMITTED WRITTEN TESTIMONY 14 Gary Tennis, Secretary PA Dept. Of Drug & Alcohol Programs 15 Michele Denk, Executive Director 16 PA Association of County, Drug & Alcohol Administrators 17 18 (See other submitted testimony and handouts online.) 19 20 21 22 INDEX OF REQUESTED DOCUMENTS OR INFORMATION 23 Page Line Page Line Page Line 24 (None) 25 Key Reporters [email protected] 3 1 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: Good 2 morning, everyone. 3 (Good morning response). 4 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: I'd like 5 to call this meeting of the Human Services 6 Committee to order and ask everyone to stand for 7 Pledge of Allegiance. 8 (Pledge of Allegiance occurred off the 9 record). 10 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: Okay. In 11 lieu of taking roll call, I might let the members 12 just go around and say hello, and let everyone know 13 where they're from. I might start with Jay. 14 REPRESENTATIVE ORTITAY: Representative 15 Jason Ortitay, 46th District, Allegheny and 16 Washington counties. 17 REPRESENTATIVE WARD: Judy Ward, 80th 18 District, Blair County. 19 REPRESENTATIVE RADER: Jack Rader, 176th 20 District, Monroe County. Hello. 21 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Dave 22 Zimmerman, the 99th district. That's the northeast 23 part of Lancaster County. 24 REPRESENTATIVE QUIGLEY: Tom Quigley, 25 the 146th District, Montgomery County. Key Reporters [email protected] 4 1 REPRESENTATIVE STAATS: Craig Staats, 2 Bucks County. 3 REPRESENTATIVE MURT: Tom Murt, 4 Philadelphia and Montgomery County. 5 REPRESENTATIVE NELSON: Good morning. 6 Eric Nelson, Westmoreland County. 7 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: Gene 8 DiGirolamo, Bucks County, 18th district. 9 REPRESENTATIVE PASHINSKI: Good morning. 10 Eddie Day Pashinski, Luzerne County. 11 REPRESENTATIVE WENTLING: Parke 12 Wentling, portions of Lawrence, Mercer, Crawford 13 and Erie counties. 14 REPRESENTATIVE DRISCOLL: Good morning. 15 Mike Driscoll, Northeast Philadelphia. 16 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: Okay. 17 Our hearing today, really an important issue. Just 18 a couple ground rules. 19 I understand, first, the cameras are on 20 and PCN is covering this live. Also, I'm going to 21 let the testifiers testify first. And then if we 22 have time at the end of the meeting, we will open 23 it up for questions and answers from the members. 24 We're scheduled to be here for two 25 hours. It is my hope that we can get this finished Key Reporters [email protected] 5 1 closer to an hour than two hours. Very busy time 2 for everybody around the Capitol. We got a really, 3 really good turn out today. There's something 4 called the budget I think we gotta work on today, 5 tomorrow or pretty soon. I just wanted to let 6 everybody know that. 7 Also, a couple more members have joined 8 us. Brad, do you wanna just say hello? 9 REPRESENTATIVE ROAE: Good morning. 10 Representative Brad Roae from Crawford and Erie 11 County. 12 REPRESENTATIVE DIAMOND: Representative 13 Russ Diamond, eastern Lebanon County, 102nd 14 District. 15 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: With 16 that, today's -- The hearing is on the involuntary 17 treatment for alcohol and drug addiction. And, 18 again, the important issue, especially with the 19 opiate and the heroin crisis that we are 20 experiencing in every one of our districts and all 21 across the State of Pennsylvania, this is a crisis. 22 A lot of people have different ideas how to address 23 this crisis and this problem. 24 Representative Readshaw is here with us 25 today, and I might ask Harry to come up. It is Key Reporters [email protected] 6 1 Harry's bill that we're doing the hearing on. It's 2 House Bill 1692. So, I would like to recognize 3 Representative Readshaw for a brief description or 4 explanation of what the bill is trying to 5 accomplish. 6 REPRESENTATIVE READSHAW: Thank you very 7 much, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank you, 8 obviously, and both the Majority and Minority 9 Chairs and the committee for having this hearing 10 today. 11 I won't belabor the point of what the 12 legislature is attempting to do. I'm sure 13 everyone's familiar with it, involuntary treatment 14 for drug and alcohol addiction. I would like to 15 say that this is not a first. In Kentucky and Ohio 16 had been signed -- similar legislation has been 17 signed into law. It's referred to as Casey's Law. 18 And in Indiana and Florida, similar legislation has 19 been introduced and passed into law. It's referred 20 to by Jennifer's Law. 21 I must also mention that former 22 Representative Louise Bishop began a similar effort 23 in 1990 and was never successful, or the 24 legislation was never considered. So, obviously, 25 here we are again in an attempt to allow a family Key Reporters [email protected] 7 1 to intercede in the hope of saving a life. Like 2 the Chairman said, if I may just do a little 3 editorial to maybe emphasize how important this is. 4 The incident in Florida, Orlando, where 5 49 people were killed, that was very, very tragic. 6 We all admit that, and it's a deep concern to 7 everyone. On that same day, probably more than 200 8 people overdosed in the United States of America 9 and we heard nothing. 10 So, just to put it in perspective, this 11 is an extremely serious problem. I know a lot of 12 my colleagues have legislation in an attempt to 13 bring about recommendations or resolutions to the 14 matter. But, I suppose if anyone walks out of this 15 room today, I would just like to emphasize how 16 important this is. 17 Thank you very much for your time. 18 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: 19 Representative Readshaw, thank you. Thank you for 20 your ongoing interest in this issue. 21 To bring to the members' attention, in 22 your packets there are written testimony from Gary 23 Tennis, who is the Secretary of the Department of 24 Drug and Alcohol Programs; and also from Michele 25 Denk, who is the Executive Director of the PA Key Reporters [email protected] 8 1 Association of County, Drug and Alcohol 2 Administrators. Some of you know 'em as your 3 county SCAs. 4 With that, I'd like to bring our first 5 testifier up, and that is going to be -- We're very 6 happy to have Doctor Rachel Levine, who is the 7 Physician General for the State of Pennsylvania. 8 Rachel, welcome. 9 DOCTOR LEVINE: Thank you very much, 10 sir. 11 MAJORITY CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: And you 12 can begin whenever you're ready. 13 DOCTOR LEVINE: So, you have my written 14 comments, but I would love the opportunity to just 15 kind of summarize some of the important points. 16 So, good morning, Chairman DiGirolamo, 17 and to Chairman Cruz, who I know is not here. And 18 I would like to thank the committee for the 19 opportunity to come here today to comment and 20 discuss House Bill 1692, and the care and treatment 21 for individuals that abuse opioids. 22 So, it's well-known the scope of this 23 crisis. The Pennsylvania Coroner's report 24 indicated that almost 2500 individuals had lost 25 their lives to overdoses in the Commonwealth, and Key Reporters [email protected] 9 1 the 2016 report has every indication that it's 2 going to be worse. 3 Some of the best tools that we have to 4 address this epidemic are prevention and education. 5 So, with the Department of Drug and Alcohol 6 Programs, and the Department of Health and other 7 departments, we're working to address this. So 8 we're working with the Pennsylvania Medical Society 9 and other stakeholders on prescribing guidelines; 10 on continuing medical education for physicians and 11 other providers. We're working with the medical 12 school deans as well on education for medical 13 students to try to have less opioids being 14 prescribed in the Commonwealth for acute and 15 chronic pain. 16 One of the largest challenges that we 17 have is, we face this epidemic is lack of access to 18 care, and that includes challenges in terms of 19 capacities for drug addiction treatment whether you 20 talk about inpatient treatment; whether you talk 21 about outpatient treatment, or medication-assisted 22 treatment.