House extends and expands Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission to include people with lived addiction experience

The Georgia House approved Senate Bill 233 on Thursday to extend the Behavioral Health Reform and Innovation Commission and add six members drawn from people with lived experience of substance use disorder or family members who lost an immediate relative to overdose. The vote was 164–2.

Representative Sharon Cooper presented the bill and said the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities requested the change to make the commission more representative; the commission previously centered clinical and professional expertise and the change adds people in or affected by recovery to subcommittees and the full commission.

Sponsor testimony indicated the commission currently had 24 members and the bill expands membership to 30. The added seats are specifically listed in the statutory language to include people who have survived addiction or who have lost immediate family members to drug overdose or fentanyl poisoning. Supporters said adding lived experience would strengthen policy recommendations. Representative Park Cannon and Representative Mary Margaret Oliver spoke in favor; Oliver described the commission's bipartisan record and said it had helped secure more than $500 million in new mental-health funding in recent years.

The House adopted the committee recommendations and passed the bill. The measure extends the commission for an additional year and preserves the commission's subcommittee structure while adding the specified lived-experience appointments. The bill now goes to the governor.