John Nutting

Excellent, excellent question.

It's a much needed change we need to make.

I think a lot of the elementary and high schools are beginning to try to broach that subject.

A lot of it is still so, like, I don't understand myself.

I've never talked to anybody that does understand why the vast majority of schizophrenics are born in January and the first two weeks of February.

Why?

And so it's just the phobias and the delusions become so real to these individuals that they start doing things that harm others or to harm themselves.

Yes, I mean, it's like when I served, there was at least some communication between both ends of the hallway, we used to call it, between the House and the Senate.

When one body did one thing, at least you were aware of it.

Also going to be improved, I think, going forward, if we slowly, and I think this is happening slowly,

increase the number of parents that are unashamed and are willing to reach out to legislators to let them know what this really is, that it's real, that when they're not on the treatment plan, it's devastational to not only the family, but usually the community.

And so that they raise people's awareness.

This is a medical condition.

This is not, you know, Billy down the street choosing to do this.

This is what he believes, you know, he should do in order to survive.

And of course, it's not accurate at all.

Well, in Maine, I first submitted this bill in 2002 and had a firestorm of opposition to it and some parents there testifying for it.

And the Commissioner of Health and Human Services at the time under the John Baldacci administration

talked to the administrators of the law in New York, which is called Kendra's Law.

So she brought forth the suggestion that we table a bill from one session to between the session, between the first long session and the second shorter section.