John Nutting; Treat Brain Disorders Like Any Other Illness
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Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Hosted by Tony Miator. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests share their raw, howlful stories. Some will spark laughter, others will move you to tears. These real life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you that you're never alone. We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance, and profound understanding of autism and mental health. Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me, embracing autism and mental health worldwide.
Before we jump in, if you haven't already, I invite you to tap follow. It only takes a couple of seconds and it helps this show reach more families who need to hear these conversations. Thanks for being here. Welcome to our special event, Crafting Justice, Empowering Autism and Mental Health Through Legislation. Joining us today is John Nutting, a former Maine State Senator who has spent time on the front lines of government helping craft legislation that impacts mental health services and the system families rely on. We're going to talk about the realities of serious mental illness, the challenges policymakers face in addressing it, and what meaningful change could look like if we truly prioritize mental health in our communities.
It's going to be a great conversation. Thanks for joining us today.
That's all right.
No, no problem at all. If you would, give us a little information about yourself and your background.
Well, I used to be a dairy farmer slash state legislator. Looking back, I don't know how I did both, but I was young and so was my wife. And the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Maine Supreme Court, years ago told me, said if a family tells me that there's no brain disorders in their family, I know they're lying because it's biological. It's in every family. And that's one of the points we're trying to make here in Maine is that if you have a disorder of any part of your body, it goes without saying that you're going to treat that disorder. The same should be true for the brain. Absolutely. And we've got millions of families torn apart by this subject nationwide and all the homelessness and in jails and hospitals over and over and over again because one particular group has this debate raging across the country that, well, it's their right to be psychotic, right to be bipolar.
Right.
And that just assures that they're not going to have any successes and may hurt somebody else or may hurt themselves. It's just so unnecessary. The levels of melatonin and serotonin in their brains are not normal.
Sure.
Especially some of the now newer medications help to restore those without as many side effects as previous medications. Some progress is being made there so that they can go on and start to have some successes in their lives.
Sure. I know different states have different acronyms for this. So what is the AOT law in the state of Maine?
Well, it's called the Progressive Treatment Plan. I was a sponsor of it as a state senator way back in 2003. We've made some progress, but I have to admit that it's been a 23-year battle to try to get the original law implemented as it was written. We're still not there yet. We've made progress. Bob Staples, who you met before, and I just finished going to Augusta. In fact, we had the final vote today on LD 1989, an act to increase access to the progressive treatment plan legal fund, because last year, the Attorney General suddenly announced they weren't going to represent all of the PTP hearings in front of our judges. And so it left families really in alerts that if they couldn't afford an attorney themselves, a loved one was not going to extend.
It is for a one-year term with one-year extensions at a time if they have a district court judge agree to it.
Okay. Now, when lawmakers start crafting legislation for mental health, what are the biggest gaps you see between the family's actual needs versus what policy is actually providing?
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