Hundreds of healers, patients and doctors oppose S.261 licensure plan, urge safe‑harbor and targeted trafficking responses

A broad coalition of alternative‑health practitioners, patients, physicians and legal advocates urged the Joint Committee to reject Senate Bill 261 — legislation that would create a new licensing framework covering dozens of energy‑, spiritual‑ and body‑based modalities.

Hundreds of individual witnesses and many advocacy groups testified in opposition at a hearing that stretched for hours. Practitioners said the proposal is too broad, would impose costly school and program approvals, require bonds and fees that would force small sole‑proprietors from the market, and would improperly place non‑touch, spiritual and energy modalities under a massage‑therapy styled board.

“Licensing this practice would be like using these principles, would be like regulating somebody’s prayer or religious practice,” testified Laura Bonieski Joseph, a multi‑generational healer. Multiple witnesses described volunteer programs — for example, Reiki volunteer services at major hospitals and hospice centers — that would be threatened if practitioners had to secure costly state‑approved training, bonds and approvals.

Opponents also challenged the bill’s premise that occupational licensure is an effective way to prevent human trafficking. Several speakers cited the Massachusetts Interagency Human Trafficking Task Force (2013) and noted its recommendations focus on law enforcement, data collection and targeted interventions rather than broad occupational licensing. Attorney Robert O’Leary and other legal witnesses warned of constitutional and antitrust risks if a small board of licensed trades restricts competing educational programs.

Physicians and other medical professionals also spoke, but from different angles. Dr. Sarah Schulman, a board‑certified physician, told the committee her own recovery used complementary modalities and opposed a bill that would narrow patients’ access. Others asked for cleaner statutory language to carve out legitimate practices and protect consumers.

Many witnesses urged the legislature to consider an alternative: a “safe‑harbor” statute (bills S.1481 / H.2504 were cited) that would preserve consumer access to complementary care while ensuring basic transparency and criminal‑background checks where appropriate. Supporters argued that safe‑harbor laws already in effect in other states strike a better balance between consumer protection and preserving non‑medical healing traditions.

Committee members heard detailed, often personal testimony — from cancer‑care volunteers, longtime Feldenkrais and somatic‑movement educators, Reiki masters, breath‑work teachers, and dozens of clients who credited these therapies with restoring health when conventional medicine had not. The committee did not take a vote. Members asked for written submissions and specific proposals that would implement the 2013 trafficking task‑force recommendations without broadly licensing hundreds of modalities.

Next steps: The committee invited additional written materials and legal analyses and indicated it would review narrower statutory options, including safe‑harbor language and targeted amendments to existing criminal and consumer‑protection statutes.