Fri, Apr 5th, 2024 - 5:55am
March 14, 2024 - 9:58am | By Ty Schonert
(St. Paul, MN) -- A Minnesota lawmaker would allow for residents to seek non-religious based addiction treatment services, should the resident request them.
HF3486, otherwise known as the Minnesota Recovery Options Act, would allow for those in recovery treatment programs to be provided with a non-religious support system. If a non-religious system was not a reasonable distance away, or could not be identified in a reasonable amount of time, then the attendee would be allowed to skip religious portions of the recovery treatment classes.
"We are not talking about people objecting to being required to participate in substance use disorder treatment in-general, many recognize they need help and want to receive it, but the religious component in some programs can be a barrier for those who object to them and that can make these treatment programs less effective," said Representative Mike Freiberg (DFL-Golden Valley), the primary sponsor of the bill in the House Human Services Policy Committee.
Representative Dave Baker (R-Willmar) did share concerns about creating a "new lane" of treatment that could place pressures on court and treatment systems. He argued the legislation could place an undue burden on support systems, and that it would impact a small portion of the state population if passed anyway.
"Maybe this is just more of an aspirational thing, that we should make sure that those choices are allowed. My fear is [...] folks that are willing to go to treatment but are going to be so challenging to work with in the court systems that nothing is good enough, or nothing is non-religious enough to take a yes answer to someplace," said Rep. Baker.
The bill was approved and sent to the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee for further review.
