Jun 06 2008
Colorado Legislation Signed By Governor Ritter
On June 2nd, the Governor of Colorado signed into law the legislation (SB08-219) that will register massage therapists at the state level, eliminating our current system that licenses city-by-city, if they license at all.
The law takes effect on July 1st and registration is expected to begin in April, 2009.
For several reasons, the bill was changed from “licensing” to “registration”, with almost all of the same provisions:
1. Definition of scope of practice.
2. Title protection.
3. Grandfathering for a period of one year (April 2009-March 2010).
4. A mechanism for consumer complaints
If you’d like to read the full text of the act, here’s a link to the Colorado General Assembly website page that lists all versions of the bill as it passed through the House and Senate. From this page, you can download a pdf file of the Final act.:
http://tinyurl.com/3nxknv
Although some massage practitioners feel there should be no regulation of our field, I personally think that, in the long run, it’s better for us to work collectively, as we did here in CO, to define and regulate ourselves proactively, than to have outside interests define our scope of practice and impose onerous regulation. After reading over several drafts of the bill, I think we got it right. We had the advantage of learning from the mistakes made in other states, we had excellent lobbyists/advisers, and we had coalition members with a wealth of experience to draw upon.
A special thank you to Jean Robinson, ABMP Government Relations and primary author of the bill; Kathryn Stewart, AMTA-Colorado Chapter Government Relations Chair, and Susan Grubb, AMTA-Colorado member, Coordinator of Massage Therapy Legislative Awareness Day, and Manager of the Legislative Alert Network. These three powerful women worked ceaselessly to shepherd us through this process.
Congratualtions Colorado! While some regulating can be a royal pain, having a common entity working to make the massage profession more unified can only be good. As a massage therapist in Florida I applaud our state licensing system. We’re all under one rule, there is no question about that….and at the same time, we are all under the same protection. I assure you, it will only add to the credibility, respectability and value of the profession which helps so many people lead better lives.
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Another one falls under the unnecessary yolk of state level licensing. CA or PA could be next.
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