BLOOMINGTON – In 2002, when Jennifer Reynolds was addicted to heroin, her mother, Sharon Blair, began writing the Jennifer Act, a bill that provides procedures for the involuntary commitment of a person due to alcohol or drug abuse.

She finished the bill shortly after Jennifer died Jan. 15, 2009, at age 29.

“Parents feel helpless when their kids are addicted to drugs,” Blair said. “They are paralyzed by fear, and don’t know what to do.”

She said if an adult child is enveloped in full-blown addiction and unwilling to get assessed and treated, parents need something to help that become a reality.

“The Jennifer Act is a tool that can help parents provide their child with the help he or she needs,” she said. “As things are now, there’s nothing a parent can do unless the child breaks the law.”

Blair said if the Jennifer Act were to pass, parents of a drug-addicted adult child could go to a courthouse and file a petition with a judge.

The judge could sign an order for the person to be picked up involuntarily and taken to a hospital or drug treatment facility to get assessed and have a plan of action put together. The judge could order the person to follow the treatment plan.

The act also would allow a judge to order a person to go to a lock-down treatment facility, from which the person could not leave.

“These are treatment facilities where you can’t just walk out the front door,” Blair said. “If you do, the sheriff will pick you up and take you back.”

Blair thinks forcing an addicted adult child into treatment is the right thing to do.

“If you have an elderly family member with dementia, you can obtain power of attorney over them because they can no longer make rational decisions,” she said. “The Jennifer Act is similar, in the sense that it gives parents the power to make decisions about what is best for a child because the child is not in his or her right mind due to drug addiction.”

The Jennifer Act also requires the Department of Correction and county jails to provide rehabilitation services to all offenders with alcohol or drug addictions. The offenders would have their choice between faith-based treatment or secular treatment.

“If offenders don’t receive treatment for the root cause of their problem, we end up arresting and re-arresting them,” Blair said.

“Most of them never get a chance to get treatment outside the prison system, because they are too poor to pay for it. If we can successfully rehab them while they’re in jail, we are not only saving their lives but saving taxpayers a lot of money.”

Blair and her husband, Andy Blair, moved to Bloomington last year from Largo, Fla. In Florida, she had worked with state Rep. Darryl Rouson on a bill, but Rouson was unable to introduce it in Florida.

“He’s up for re-election this year, and if he wins, he will redraft the bill and try to introduce it,” she said. Rouson was re-elected Tuesday.

Once in Indiana, Blair wasted little time showing the bill to state Sen. Vi Simpson. Simpson and state Sen. Sue Errington from Muncie drafted an Indiana version of the bill – Senate Bill 380 – and introduced it to the Indiana General Assembly on Jan. 12.

It was referred to the Senate corrections committee, where it did not get a hearing and died. Simpson plans to redraft the bill and introduce it to the General Assembly again in January.

“My hat’s off to Sen. Simpson for working so hard on this bill,” Blair said. “In Indiana, we have no bill that can help parents intervene on behalf of their addicted kids. It’s something this state desperately needs.”