Mark Astor, Navigating Mental Health and Addiction Crises in the Legal System

Mark Astor is a lawyer who leads a legal team dedicated to helping families in crisis due to mental health disorders, substance use, and failed recovery efforts. They deal with navigating involuntary treatment laws like Florida's Baker Act and the Marchman Act, working closely with clinical teams and family systems, and helping families regain control when a loved one's condition threatens their safety, autonomy, or future. We talk about the criminal justice system and how they deal with mental health and addiction cases, Mark's career and how it evolved, learning the entrepreneur side of law, starting a law firm, the Baker Act and the Marchman Act, guardianship cases, getting married and building a business with his wife, hiring a team, mental health and addiction, Florida's draconian mental health system and how he helps families navigate it, treatment, recovery residences, marijuana and how it stands out as the most problematic drug among his clients, schizoaffective disorders triggered by marijuana, tha addictive nature of marijuana, the dangers of kratom, schizophrenia and other paranoid disorders, mistakes families make when a family memeber has an addiction problem, addiction issues in the legal system and what it does wrong, unintentionally terminating your rights in the Baker Act, interventions, how covid increased 911 calls for mental health issues, the lack of oversight and due process in Florida's mental health system, what parents should do when they first realize their child is using an addictive substance, alcohol, the Charlie Kirk case, and more.