By Kristen Padilla
Faith-based substance abuse programs will have to try again next year after a disappointing loss at the Statehouse on April 22.
Senate Bill (SB) 342, which would have exempted all religious entities providing substance abuse care from certification by the Alabama Department of Mental Health (DMH), failed in the House of Representatives after passing the Senate unanimously the week before.
Those supporting the bill had enough votes to pass it April 21, according to Eric Johnston, a Birmingham attorney and president of Citizens for a Better Alabama. But when the House convened the next day, bill supporters lost by one vote in a procedural vote to table the bill.
“The main thing that killed the bill was retribution by the gamblers, because preachers have had a continuing presence at the Statehouse opposing the gambling, which resulted in the gambling bills being defeated,” Johnston said.
“When the gamblers realized that the churches were asking to protect their religious freedom, then they took out their loss on us by lobbyists getting House members to fight us,” he added.
“If the gambling lobbyists had not been against us, I think we would have had no problem to pass it.”
The certification issue first arose in 2008, when an incident at The Bridge Inc., a noncertified faith-based substance abuse program in Double Springs, was reported to DMH.
While existing law does not distinguish between faith-based and medical-based substance abuse care, it does give DMH the right to oversee and certify any program.
This incident and the reporting of other similar incidents caused DMH to look more closely at uncertified programs, visiting some treatments centers and compiling proposed standards of care.
Rick Hagans, founder and president of Harvest Evangelism in Opelika, which operates three substance abuse care facilities, got scared.
He told The Alabama Baptist that his fear was that if the state required faith-based programs to become certified, then it could tell them whom to hire and what to teach.
Hagans contacted Sen. Ted Little, D-Auburn, and Rep. DuWayne Bridges, R-Valley.
Bridges said the concern was valid since part of the existing law “wasn’t clear.”
“[Faith-based programs] had the fear that (the Department of) Mental Health would come in and require them to be certified even though they didn’t administer any drugs or give any psychological treatment,” Bridges said.
So he and Little co-sponsored SB 342.
Approximately two years of dialogue between DMH and faith-based substance abuse programs led both groups to agree that the law needed to be amended to protect the faith-based programs from future state involvement and clarify that any group giving medical or psychological help be certified.
But the majority of the House did not seem to see it the same way.
While the failure of the bill means there is still no clarification regarding certification of substance abuse treatment programs, DMH has pledged to work with faith-based programs.
“We are confident that we can continue to work with our partners in the faith-based community to clarify the department’s mission and encourage the development of ministries that provide pastoral care for individuals who benefit from a discipleship faith-based environment,” DMH said in a statement.
Bridges was very disappointed that the bill did not pass and said he plans to bring it back next year.
“We are not giving up the fight,” Bridges said. “We need those ministries and they need to have the support of all the people.”
Share with others: