South Kingstown Senator Alana DiMario bills on ADHD drugs and PFAS in fertilizers pass
Lawmakers approve bill allowing 90-day prescriptions for ADHD medications
The legislation (2025-H 5866B, 2025-S 0795), which now heads to the governor’s office,
will allow up to a 90-day supply of such drugs to be dispensed at a time.
Currently, Schedule II drugs are limited to a 30-day supply.
The result is that those who rely on such drugs for chronic conditions such as
ADHD must contact their prescriber every 30 days, and the prescriber must then
contact the pharmacy to provide authorization. If the pharmacy does not have
the proper dosage of the drug in stock, the pharmacy must notify the patient,
and then the patient or prescriber must find a pharmacy that does and repeat
the process.
Over the last two years as the nation has experienced a
shortage of the prescription drugs to treat ADHD, the 30-day limit has meant a
time-consuming monthly hassle for those who rely on them, sometimes resulting
in hours of phone calls and long drives to locate a pharmacy that has the drug
at the proper dosage in stock.
“It is very cumbersome for patients, for parents and for physicians to go through this process every 30 days. Yes, there is a need to keep some restrictions on these drugs to prevent abuse, but the 30-day limit is heavy-handed when you consider all the difficulties people, their doctors and their pharmacists face each time they try to get a refill,” said Representative McGaw (D-Dist. 71, Portsmouth, Tiverton, Little Compton), who works as a consultant pharmacist serving the long-term care community. “Besides helping patients, this bill is a simple, safe way we can lighten a very significant load on our overburdened primary care providers and pediatricians’ staffs, who spend hours every single day on requests for refills of these very commonly used medicines. That’s good for all patients, given the crisis-level shortage of primary care providers in our state.”
Neighboring Massachusetts allows such prescriptions to be
dispensed in up to a 90-day supply.
Senator DiMario (D-Dist. 36, North Kingstown, Narraganset,
New Shoreham), who works as a licensed mental health counselor, understands the
relief this bill will provide because she has many clients who grapple with the
work of filling their prescriptions every few weeks.
“Keeping ADHD prescriptions filled is inordinately
time-consuming, frustrating and stressful, and some families have to juggle the
process for multiple prescriptions, for multiple children, at times that aren’t
synched. Allowing 90-day prescriptions will reduce this burden by two-thirds,
which will be a very welcome relief to many patients and parents,” said Senator
DiMario. “Cutting down the work involved with filling these prescriptions also
lowers the risk that patients will run out by accident or because they simply
couldn’t make the necessary phone calls in the short window of time they have
to request a refill. Particularly for the many kids who struggle in school when
they don’t have their ADHD medicine, this is change will make a very positive
impact.”
The legislation was supported by the Rhode Island
Pharmacists Association and the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Academy of
Pediatrics.
Bill enacted to test biosolids for PFAS
Legislation sponsored by Rep. Terri Cortvriend and Sen. Alana M. DiMario has been signed into law to require anyone applying for a permit to spread biosolids on land to first test the material for PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
In Rhode Island, land application is not the primary
disposal method of biosolids — the solids that are left after sewage is treated
— in local sewage treatment facilities. However, because biosolids are
nutrient-dense, some farms do use them for fertilizer. Farms that do so must
obtain a permit from the Department of Environmental Management.
The legislation (2025-H 5844A, 2025-S 0650A), approved by the General Assembly June 10 and
signed by Gov. Daniel McKee June 13, will require that anyone applying for that
permit first test the material for PFAS contamination. The new law also
requires that any entity with such a permit submit their material for testing
quarterly and report the results to DEM, with the first report due by Dec. 31,
2025.
“There is a growing body of concerns about the dangers of
PFAS, and experience in other places has shown that their presence in biosolids
used for fertilizer is a public health risk as well as a contamination risk for
land and water. They are called ‘forever chemicals’ for a reason, and Rhode
Island can’t afford to lose farmland contaminated by them,” said Senator
DiMario (D-Dist. 36, Narragansett, North Kingstown, New Shoreham).
Said Representative Cortvriend (D-Dist. 72, Portsmouth,
Middletown), “The more we learn about PFAS, the clearer it becomes that we need
to pay much more attention to where they are and what is being done with them.
They’re so ubiquitous that they’re now in virtually everyone’s bodies, and it
is no wonder that they are in sewage. If we are going to permit biosolids to be
applied agriculturally, they should be tested for PFAS to prevent them from
contaminating our food, our livestock and wildlife, and the groundwater that we
all share.”
PFAS are a family of man-made chemicals used in everything
from carpets to frying pan coatings to lipstick. Because their use is so
pervasive and they take so long to break down in nature, they are increasingly
being found in the environment, including in drinking water, and in humans’
bodies.
According to an overview study
published in 2021 and an open letter from 171 scientists, all well-studied
PFAS have been shown to have a wide range of adverse effects on human health,
including altered immune and thyroid function, liver disease, kidney disease,
adverse reproductive and developmental outcomes and cancer.
Maine banned the use of biosolids as fertilizer in 2022
after it was discovered that widespread agricultural use of them over decades
had contaminated many farms there. The issue first came to
light in 2016 when high levels of the chemicals were found in milk produced at
a Maine dairy farm. After subsequent testing found contamination of milk from
another farm and in groundwater at another, the state began investigating
contamination at farms around the state that had used biosolids. More than 60
Maine farms have been identified as having unsafe levels of PFAS contamination
in their soil and water, some with such high contamination they were forced to
shut down, since crops grown there become contaminated, and animals become
contaminated from consuming those crops and the water.
The bill was supported by DEM, Save The Bay, the Rhode
Island Farm Bureau, Rhode Island Audubon, and the Rhode Island Land Trust
Council.
Since Rhode Island sewage treatment plants do not generally
send biosolids to be used as fertilizer, farms that use biosolids are generally
sourcing them from other states. And while Rhode Island is working to reduce
PFAS in products used here, biosolids from other states that haven’t made such
changes might be even more likely to contain the chemicals.
A bill enacted by the General Assembly in 2022 now
prohibits PFAS in food packaging, and a law passed last year
will phase out PFAS in most consumer products sold or
manufactured in Rhode Island beginning in 2027 and banned PFAS from
firefighting foam beginning this year. Another bill (2025-S 0241, 2025-H 5019) that cleared the Assembly and was signed into
law last week will ban PFAS from firefighters’ personal protective gear.
Senator DiMario and Representative Cortvriend were both cosponsors of that
bill.