Rehab Riviera: Three clean-up bills defy odds and hit governor’s desk, but are they tough enough?

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There Should Be a Law… –

September 2, 2018 -Most legislation aimed at cleaning up California’s dysfunctional addiction treatment industry slammed into brick walls, withered in suspense files or was watered down so much as to be unrecognizable – again. “These legislators have blood on their hands,” said Ryan Hampton, who pushed a bill to require basic standards for sober living homes after a friend died of an overdose in one – and was outraged when language referencing sober living homes was deleted at the last minute. “I have to go back and tell his mother that business will remain as usual, and people will continue to die?” Hampton fumed. A bill by Sen. Pat Bates, inspired by successful reforms in scandal-plagued Florida, would have kick-started a wholesale revamp of California’s notoriously lax regulation of addiction treatment. Instead, her bill languishes in suspended animation in a committee file. It essentially is dead.