Gov. DeSantis signs substance abuse, mental health bills

• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed two bills aimed at improving mental health and substance abuse treatment.
• One bill mandates more frequent updates to treatment plans for patients in facilities.
• The other bill, named the Tristin Murphy Act, allows for the diversion of mentally ill individuals from jail to treatment programs.
• Also, a new research center for substance abuse and mental health will be named after State Sen. Darryl Rouson.

Those suffering from substance abuse will get more frequent updates of treatment plans and mentally ill felons will have more chances to get diverted from jail into treatment under a pair of bills signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis on June 25.

The first (SB 1620) puts recommendations from the Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse into state law, including requiring facilities to update treatment plans for patients every 30 days. If a patient has been in the facility for more than two years, the plan must be updated every two months.

Other pieces of the bill require the Department of Children and Families to conduct reviews of mental health services and accessibility at schools and health care facilities.

“Today we can have honest dialogue about mental health,” said Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, who prioritized the measures in his chamber. “Ten years ago it was taboo but today we’ve broken the seal on this conversation.”

The bill was passed unanimously through this year’s legislative process, but nearly derailed over a dispute with the House over a provision to name a center for substance abuse and mental health research after state Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg.

Once a drug addict, Rouson cleaned up, turned his life around and has championed substance abuse issues since he was first elected to the Legislature in 2008.

The House stripped the naming provision – lawmakers generally disfavor naming things in state law after people who are still alive – before sending it back to the Senate in the session’s final days.

DeSantis acknowledged the “hiccup” in getting the name officially in state statutes, but nevertheless announced the research center, to be housed within the Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida, will still be named after Rouson.

Rouson thanked DeSantis and emphasized the importance of the bill in “increasing the accessibility of long-acting medications” and “reducing the risk of relapse.”

“I will never forget the day I asked for help,” Rouson said. “The hopelessness, the loneliness the anger, the fear, the deep-gut rage, the gift of desperation – the bottom was my gift of desperation. I became desperate to change.”

The second bill (SB 168) sets up a way for local governments to divert mentally ill inmates from jail to treatment.

It is named the Tristin Murphy Act after the 37 year-old who killed himself with a chainsaw in 2021 while on a prison work detail. Murphy suffered from schizophrenia and was sentenced to prison after driving into a retention pond in Charlotte County.

He was placed with the general population of the prison despite his history of mental illness, which included a stint in a state mental health facility.

The bill also requires the Department of Corrections to review each inmate’s physical and mental health before they become eligible for work details.

“People need to be held accountable but you also have to provide support in ways that will actually address the problem,” DeSantis said.

Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.