The opioid crisis spreading across the sunshine state has been a major concern that Florida Governor Rick Scott and other Florida lawmakers have been trying to tackle.
In turn, Florida Senator Marco Rubio is looking to continue his effort by securing the passing of a bill that allows the federal government to crack down on non-reputable drug recovery homes. The bipartisan opioid package was passed on Wednesday, which was introduced in early 2017. The package involves the Florida’s Senator’s own legislation that prohibits drug addiction call centers from generating profit off patient referrals without verifying whether the provider of treatment is reputable. The legislation also calls for changing the system to reward companies that have a good record of getting people clean.
In response to the passing of the package, Senator Rubio commented that “The way this place works, to get from an idea in June to a law in October is not common. I don’t think I’ll be saying this much. We were brainstorming what we could do at the federal level and came up with a federal law that goes after the middlemen who make all this money. They’re basically trapping people and they put them back into rehab.”