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Bills targeting California rehab industry wait for Gov. Jerry Brown’s...
Gov. Jerry Brown speaks in Sacramento on May 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) Still sitting on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk: a bill that would enshrine “patient-brokering” – when licensed drug...
View ArticleCongress demands documents related to rehab industry’s ‘patient brokering’ of...
The U.S. House committee investigating the ugly underbelly of addiction rehab in America told eight call centers to cough up details about their business practices – including whether they get paid for...
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Addiction industry executives face off with lawmakers on Capitol Hill
Rep. Buddy Carter, R-GA Michael Cartwright, CEO American Addiction Centers SoundThe gallery will resume insecondsMark Mishek, CEO Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation Hearing room of the U.S. House Energy...
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Sober Living: Modern family or big business?
The rules at Joseph Scolari’s sober living home were clear: No drugs or alcohol, of course. Random searches. Drug tests. No sex. Scolari had known little about the sober living home industry just a few...
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Sober Living, Day 3: Lawsuits pile up; drive couple out of business
DAY 1: In So Cal’s Rehab Riviera, sober living homes are common. So is outrage. DAY 2: From neighbors to litigants; the gloves come off quickly. TODAY: Sober living was a $150,000-a-month business –...
View ArticleSober Living, Day 4: Lawmakers must force industry to shape up, many say
This is the last in a four-part series. Read Part 1: Outrage | Part 2: Litigation | Part 3: Legal bills The legal feud that pit sober living operators Joseph and Rebecca Scolari against their former...
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Rehab Riviera: 3 clean-up bills defy odds and hit governor’s desk, but are...
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 –...
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New rehab laws may revamp addiction treatment in California
Gov. Jerry Brown signed a raft of bills into law Wednesday that will begin imposing order on the Wild Wild West of California’s addiction treatment system. Most take small steps in what reformers say...
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Empower local governments to regulate wayward sober homes, witnesses tell...
Rep. Judy Chu Attorney Todd Leishman SoundThe gallery will resume insecondsDave Aronberg, State Attorney for Palm Beach County., Florida (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG) The Costa...
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Parents agonize: ‘Did our son really have to die?’
First of two parts. See Part 2 here. Brandon Nelson loved to fix things. When his mother’s computer froze up with a weird error message, he scoured the Internet until he found a solution: Put the...
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Disjointed mental health treatment system in California fractured over decades
Brandon Nelson’s descent into California’s fractured mental health treatment system illustrates the dysfunction that has put thousands of mentally ill people on the streets, experts say. It began...
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Brandon Nelson’s parents trusted his mental health treatment, but ‘our system...
Second of two parts. Read Part 1 here. Left unattended, Rose and Allen Nelson’s son committed suicide at the very mental health home where he was supposed to get help. As they struggled to understand...
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Alcoholics may benefit from multimillion-dollar grant for opioid-blocking...
It’s a well-known and lethal problem: About 90 percent of recovering addicts relapse and use drugs such as heroin again. The overwhelming majority of these falls from grace occur within one month of...
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No one is inspecting sober living homes, but bill would require minimum...
Assemblyman Tom Daly, D-Anaheim (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, file) An overview of a sober living home on Via Lampara, San Clemente, and its neighbors. (Courtesy of Orange County Superior Court case file...
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Battle-weary Sovereign Health claims boost from state in fierce fight for...
Tonmoy Sharma, founder and CEO of Sovereign Health. (File photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG) FBI agents in Sovereign’s lobby, with guns, June 2017. Courtesy Sovereign Health. SoundThe...
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Lawmakers vow to push stiffer regulations on addiction treatment in California
After disturbing reports of death, sexual assault, drug abuse and paying for patients inside California’s loosely regulated addiction treatment industry, an across-the-aisle team of lawmakers has...
View ArticleGraduates of San Bernardino Superior Court’s rehabilitative programs honored...
Nine graduates of the San Bernardino County Superior Court’s rehabilitative programs were honored May 17 at the annual Collaborative Treatment Court Celebration. The graduates’ families and justice...
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Governor gets bills that would crack down on addiction treatment scams, raise...
This file photo shows OxyContin pills (AP Photo/Toby Talbot) On his left forearm, Dillon DeRita had a tattoo of the Serenity Prayer, with its plea for redemptive power. He died at an addiction...
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Fentanyl killed 1,649 people in California over 5 years, a number dwarfed by...
Forensic scientist Terry Baisz shows pills masking as other pharmaceutical drugs but they are actually Fentanyl at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department crime lab MICHAEL GOULDING, ORANGE COUNTY...
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Federal agents raid 4 Southern California addiction treatment centers
Federal agents raided four addiction treatment centers in Los Angeles and Orange counties last week seeking evidence in a criminal probe, officials said Monday. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said the...
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