The Florida Senate

397.305  Legislative findings, intent, and purpose.--

(1)  Substance abuse is a major health problem and leads to such profoundly disturbing consequences as serious impairment, chronic addiction, criminal behavior, vehicular casualties, spiraling health care costs, AIDS, and business losses, and profoundly affects the learning ability of children within our schools and educational systems. Substance abuse impairment is a disease which affects the whole family and the whole society and requires specialized prevention, intervention, and treatment services that support and strengthen the family unit. This chapter is designed to provide for substance abuse services.

(2)  It is the purpose of this chapter to provide for a comprehensive continuum of accessible and quality substance abuse prevention, intervention, and treatment services in the least restrictive environment of optimum care that protects and respects the rights of clients, especially for involuntary admissions, primarily through community-based private not-for-profit providers working with local governmental programs involving a wide range of agencies from both the public and private sectors.

(3)  It is the intent of the Legislature to ensure within available resources a full continuum of substance abuse services based on projected identified needs, delivered without discrimination and with adequate provision for specialized needs.

(4)  It is the goal of the Legislature to discourage substance abuse by promoting healthy lifestyles and drug-free schools, workplaces, and communities.

(5)  It is the purpose of the Legislature to integrate program evaluation efforts, adequate administrative support services, and quality assurance strategies with direct service provision requirements and to ensure funds for these purposes.

(6)  It is the intent of the Legislature to require the cooperation of departmental programs, services, and program offices in achieving the goals of this chapter and addressing the needs of clients.

(7)  It is the intent of the Legislature to provide, for substance abuse impaired adult and juvenile offenders, an alternative to criminal imprisonment by encouraging the referral of such offenders to service providers not generally available within the correctional system instead of or in addition to criminal penalties.

(8)  It is the intent of the Legislature to provide, within the limits of appropriations and safe management of the correctional system, substance abuse services to substance abuse impaired offenders who are incarcerated within the Department of Corrections, in order to better enable these inmates to adjust to the conditions of society presented to them when their terms of incarceration end.

(9)  It is the intent of the Legislature to provide for assisting substance abuse impaired persons primarily through health and other rehabilitative services in order to relieve the police, courts, correctional institutions, and other criminal justice agencies of a burden that interferes with their ability to protect people, apprehend offenders, and maintain safe and orderly communities.

(10)  It is the purpose of the Legislature to establish a clear framework for the comprehensive provision of substance abuse services in the context of a coordinated and orderly system.

(11)  It is the intent of the Legislature that the freedom of religion of all citizens shall be inviolate. Nothing in this act shall give any governmental entity jurisdiction to regulate religious, spiritual, or ecclesiastical services.

History.--s. 2, ch. 93-39.