5NP Update 5/29/25

HB 2143A in the queue for its 3rd Senate reading, plus more good news

Art by A. Cohen

Our 5NP bill, HB 2143A¹, is scheduled to be voted on by the Oregon Senate. The twist is, it’s been on the schedule for over a week now but the schedule itself keeps getting re-arranged — to the chagrin of those of us who’ve been tuning in to the Senate’s video feed every day. But we think today — or tomorrow — might be our day! For anyone who’d like to join us, in hopes of watching a historic 5NP moment, here’s what to do:

1. Go to the page with the Session Details for 5/29/25 and click on Senate Third Readings to see the schedule. The Senate convenes at 10:45 am today. Check marks will appear beside the bills as they work through them. Our bill is 20th on the list.

2. Near the top of the Session Details page, there should be a little camera icon for streaming video that you can click on. Or you can go to the Legislative Audio and Video page and find the Senate meeting.

For those of us who’ve been watching the Senate proceedings for the past week, it’s been an amazing extended civics lesson (and also, we’ll be honest, a test of our patience; let’s just say we’ve heard enough about paper bags and ham radios to last awhile).

So now you know what I’ll be doing today.

And while I have your attention I’d like to share some good news, which is that CareOregon is generously sponsoring our first annual 5NP event. It’s happening this weekend, 5/31 -6/1. If HB 2143A gets through the Senate before then, it’s going to be very, very festive. Though, fair warning, there might also be some crying when we talk about having an actual 5NP law in Oregon.

Last October, CareOregon gave us a $10,000 grant to work on our community partnership with NAYA and the NAYA Action Fund, and we’re amazed and delighted that partnership has been so fruitful, so quickly. We started working on a 5NP bill for Oregon with the NAYA Action Fund back in summer 2023 and we had no idea what the timeline would look like. Two years is like the blink of an eye for projects like this so we feel truly fortunate, regardless of this past week’s delay.²

The goal of our event is to try out a 5NP-focused gathering and to start building community around 5NP in Oregon. (We’ve never done this before!) Current POCA Tech students will be sharing about their program experience with prospective students. Current acupunks, patients and receptionists will be there to hang out and chat (in an environment where we can actually talk without waking anybody up!) We’ll have 5NP demos on Saturday afternoon from 2:30 to 4 pm. We love sharing what we’ve grown into with everyone who’s helped build it and anyone who’s feeling the draw to join.

This is the beginning of the future.

Please RSVP here!

Also, here’s a flier for distribution.

Paper Pass It On Poca Tech Fest Flyer

402KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Thank you all for reading and following our legislative odyssey³ and I hope to see some of you this weekend!

1. If you’re new here — there are a lot of new people here, hello! — you can read a short description here of 5NP and why we wanted to pass a law — and you can find other posts on this topic here (pretty much a blow-by-blow account of our process).

2. What happened with the 5NP legislation in Illinois is a more common experience for advocates. The Chicago Sun Times ran a great article about it, including the unfortunate opposition to the bill from licensed acupuncturists.

3. Not bad — and surprisingly grown up? — for “the medical equivalent of Green Day”— if we do say so ourselves.