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Read. Follow. Verify.Vermont Bill H.189 eliminates criminal penalties for personal drug possession and establishes health funding funds
Last action · February 11, 2025: Read first time and referred to the Committee on JudiciarySponsors: Troy Headrick and 3 others
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What This Bill Would Do
This bill eliminates criminal penalties and civil fines for individuals possessing or dispensing a of regulated drugs, replacing them with health needs screening and referral services. It establishes the Drug Use Health and Safety Advisory Board and the Community Care, Health, and Safety Special Fund, financed by cannabis excise taxes and opioid settlement funds, to expand voluntary and treatment services.
Who It Would Affect
Groups the bill's text would affect if enacted, as described in the record. Being affected is not a position for or against it.
Individuals who use drugs
Law enforcement and emergency response personnel
Officers must provide standardized health screening referral forms to individuals found possessing or dispensing personal-use quantities of regulated drugs.
Substance use disorder treatment and harm reduction providers
Eligible organizations can receive annual grant funding from the Community Care, Health, and Safety Special Fund to establish resource centers, mobile outreach, and low-barrier treatment.
Key Facts
- Possessing or dispensing a regulated drug in an amount equal to or less than a benchmark personal use supply is exempt from criminal or civil penalties.
- Individuals found in possession of a personal use supply must be offered a comprehensive health needs screening from VT Helplink and contact information for local harm reduction providers.
- A person who completes a health needs screening is eligible to receive a $50.00 gift card.
- The Drug Use Health and Safety Advisory Board is created, consisting of 13 members representing consumers, harm reduction providers, medical practitioners, academic experts, and legal reform specialists.
Show all 12 facts
- The Advisory Board must recommend benchmark personal use supply quantities for each category of regulated drug on or before January 1, 2026.
- The Department of Health must initiate rulemaking to adopt benchmark personal use supplies within 90 days of receiving recommendations from the Advisory Board.
- The Community Care, Health, and Safety Special Fund is established to provide grants for community care resource centers, intensive case management, peer counseling, low-barrier treatment, and overdose prevention centers.
- The Community Care, Health, and Safety Special Fund is funded by 40 percent of cannabis excise tax revenues, 15 percent of Opioid Abatement Special Fund disbursements, and General Fund transfers reflecting criminal justice savings.
- The Substance Use Prevention Special Fund is established to fund substance use prevention programming, backed by 30 percent of cannabis excise tax revenues (capped at $10 million per fiscal year).
- Law enforcement officers must provide a standard referral form developed by VT Helplink to any person possessing or dispensing a personal-use quantity of a regulated drug.
- Participation in a health screening is not an admission of any kind and is inadmissible as evidence in court proceedings.
- The Secretary of Administration must report to the General Assembly by January 15, 2026, on the projected budgetary savings from eliminating criminal penalties.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if someone is caught possessing a personal use supply of a regulated drug under this bill?
How will the community-based harm reduction and treatment services be funded?
Who determines what qualifies as a 'benchmark personal use supply'?
What else do you want to know?
News Coverage
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Votes, people, money & the original sourceWhere This Stands
Currently in committee. The next step in the legislative lifecycle is Floor Vote.
Procedural history
1 action- Feb 11, 2025HouseIntroducedRead first time and referred to the Committee on Judiciary
Version history
Only one version on file - nothing to compare yet. As later stages (committee substitute, engrossed, enrolled) are captured, the redline appears here.
View official text →Lobbying Activity
No state lobbying filings in our records match this bill. Federal lobbying reports (LDA) cover Congress, so they are not listed on state bills.
Full breakdown
Who this bill affects and the strongest case for and against it, written only from the bill’s own text.
Sponsors
Discoveries
Patterns POLISCOPE noticed across the record. These are observations to investigate, not conclusions.
Decriminalization Linked to Dedicated Funding Streams
The legislation directly ties the removal of criminal penalties to the creation of new funding streams (cannabis excise taxes and opioid settlement funds) dedicated entirely to voluntary harm reduction and treatment infrastructure.
Connected Entities
Sources
legislature.vermont.gov
Analysis Score
0–100- Significance85How much this matters to a regular citizen
- Controversy80Intensity of disagreement among stakeholders
- Entertainment10Compellingness for a non-policy-wonk reader
- Buzz55Current news / social attention level
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