No on Prop 1

https://lwvc.org/ballot-measure/prop-1-2024/no-on-prop-1

Although California has a critical need to resource better mental health and addiction services and to address our crisis of homelessness, the League of Women Voters of California opposes Proposition 1 for a number of important reasons. While the additional housing resources offered through Prop 1 are sorely needed, they do not outweigh its flaws.

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE U.S. CONDEMN FORCED TREATMENT

March 30, 2014

PLEASE email now or CALL TOMORROW EARLY:         SENATORS information HERE

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES DO NOT WANT ANY FORCED “INVOLUNTARY OUTPATIENT COMMITMENT”! IT IS AGAINST HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND WE WILL FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS UNTIL CONGRESS LISTENS!

Please make these calls TOMORROW, MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014, AT 4-7AM PACIFIC TIME OR 7-10AM EASTERN TIME. MEETING WILL START AT 10AM IN DC!

FOR CALIFORNIA PLEASE CALL:

Boxer, Barbara – (D – CA), 112 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3553,  email DIRECTLY HERE: http://www.boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm

Feinstein, Dianne – (D – CA), 331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510, (202) 224-3553, email DIRECTLY HERE: https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

FOR ALL OTHER STATES PLEASE CALL HERE

Leave a short message:

“I am (name, city). My Senator should NOT vote for a Doc Fix that includes Section 224 of the House bill (HR 4302). Section 224 has nothing to do with Medicare. It would use Federal dollars to pay for forced psychiatric treatment in our communities. Forced treatment is traumatizing. It criminalizes people in crisis. It scares people away from seeking help. It is costly but not effective. Keep Section 224 out of the Doc Fix bill.  (Leave your phone number if you want a return call.) Please make these calls TOMORROW, MONDAY AT 5-7AM PACIFIC TIME OR 8-10AM EASTERN TIME. MEETING WILL START AT 10AM IN DC!

Your voice counts if you make the calls.

From MAD IN AMERICA

March 28, 2014

An array of national mental health and disability advocacy groups joined together today, urging people to contact their senators in protest of a section of a bill rushed through the House of Representatives by voice vote yesterday. Section 224 of HR4302, up for a vote in the Senate on Monday, would subject people in crisis to forced treatment. “In its rush to fix a problem with Medicare, the House passed a bill including a highly controversial program, involuntary outpatient commitment, with no debate and no roll call vote,” said Raymond Bridge, public policy director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, “And it seems that the Senate may pass a version of the House bill including this troublesome provision on Monday.” “This legislation would eliminate initiatives that use evidence-based, voluntary, peer-run services and family supports to help people diagnosed with serious mental illnesses to recover,” said Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D. “It would bring America back to the dark ages before de-institutionalization, when people with mental health conditions languished in institutions, sometimes for life.”

Of further interest:
List of phone numbers for DC offices of U.S. Senators
Research on Outpatient Commitment (Psychrights)
Compulsory community and involuntary outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders (Cochrane Review)

Contact: Dr. Daniel Fisher, info@ncmhr.org, 877-246-9058, cell: 617-504-0832 (press only) Raymond Bridge, 703-883-7710, raymond.bridge@ncmhr.org

BUT PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SENATORS IN EACH STATE: 

DR. DANIEL FISHER ON MENTAL HEALTH

Dr. Fisher has an M.D., Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the National Empowerment Center and a member of the President’s Commission on “Mental Illness”.  He is one of the few psychiatrists in the country who openly discusses his recovery from mental illness.  He is a role model for others who are struggling to recover and his life dispels the myth that people do not recover from mental issues.

LET US REMEMBER MARTIN L. KING JR. “I call upon you to be maladjusted, maladjusted as the prophet Amos who in the midst of the tragic inequalities of injustice in his day cried out in words that echoes across the generations: ”Let judgment run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

As maladjusted as Lincoln who confronted a nation divided against itself and had the vision to see that the nation could not exist half free, and half slave.

Maladjusted as the — hundreds and thousands — of Negroes, North and South who are determined now to stand up for freedom, willing to face possible violence and possible death, who are willing to stand up and sacrifice and struggle until segregation is a dead reality and until integration is a fact.

Maladjusted as Jefferson who in the midst of an age amazingly adjusted to slavery cried out in words of cosmic proportions: ”All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I call upon you to follow this maladjustment. It is through such a maladjustment that we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom, equality and justice.”

Martin Luther King Jr.,     Excerpt:

“There are certain words in the technical vocabulary of every academic discipline that tend after a while to become stereotype and cliches, there is a word in modern psychology which is now probably more familiar than any other words in psychology. It is the word the maladjusted; it is the ringing cry of the new child, psychology — maladjusted.”

Heritage Foundation Presents Perjury Proponent

By Jim Gottstein, July 14, 2012

Bastille Day is here, but some organizations think locking people up on the basis of uninvestigated charges and secret trials is okay—even that our laws don’t go far enough in doing so.  On Wednesday, July 18th, the Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C., is hosting a talk by E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., America’s most notorious proponent of violating psychiatric rights.

Torrey is promoting his book, The Insanity Offense, which advocates making it even easier to lock citizens up, label and stigmatize them without legal justification, and forcibly drug them against their will (“forced treatment”).  In a prior book, Torrey explicitly advocates committing perjury to accomplish these aims, noting with approval, “It would probably be difficult to find any American psychiatrist working with the mentally ill who has not, at a minimum, exaggerated the dangerousness of a mentally ill person’s behavior to obtain a judicial order for commitment.”

Award winning author of Anatomy of An Epidemic, Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, Robert Whitaker, recently had occasion to expose Dr. Torrey’s deliberate use of falsehoods to advance his agenda in, E. Fuller Torrey’s Review of Anatomy of an Epidemic: What Does It Reveal About the Rationale for Forced Treatment?

Occupy Psychiatry, a new joint project by the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights^®) and MindFreedom, International, will be at the presentation to counter Torrey’s falsehoods.  See, the informational flyer for this event.  James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.,  president of PsychRights, said, “The paid henchmen of the pharmaceutical companies, such as E. Fuller Torrey, must be challenged when they spin their web of lies.”   Mr. Gottstein is hoping to attend.

People are gathering at 11:30 a.m. at 214 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E.  For more information go to the Occupy Torrey Tirade Facebook Event Page.

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. PsychRights is further dedicated to exposing the truth about psychiatric interventions and the courts being misled into ordering people subjected to these brain and body damaging drugs against their will. Extensive information about these dangers, and about the tragic damage caused by electroshock, is available on the PsychRights web site: http://psychrights.org/.

CONTACT:  Jim Gottstein, 907 274-7686, jim.gottstein@psychrights.org

Psychiatry’s bible, the DSM, is doing more harm than good

Published on April 27, 2012, by Paula J. Caplan in the Washington Post

About a year ago, a young mother called me, extremely distressed. She had become seriously sleep-deprived while working full-time and caring for her dying grandmother every night. When a crisis at her son’s day-care center forced her to scramble to find a new child-care arrangement, her heart started racing, prompting her to go to the emergency room.

After a quick assessment, the intake doctor declared that she had bipolar disorder, committed her to a psychiatric ward and started her on dangerous psychiatric medication. From my conversations with this woman, I’d say she was responding to severe exhaustion and alarm, not suffering from mental illness.

Since the 1980s, when I first made public my concerns about psychiatric diagnosis, I have heard from hundreds of people who have been arbitrarily slapped with a psychiatric label and are struggling because of it. About half of all Americans get a psychiatric diagnosis in their lifetimes. Receiving any of the 374 psychiatric labels — from nicotine dependence disorder to schizophrenia — can cost anyone their health insurance, job, custody of their children, or right to make their own medical and legal decisions. And if patients take psychiatric drugs, they risk developing physical disorders such as diabetes, heart problems, weight gain and other serious conditions. In light of the subjectivity of these diagnoses and the harm they can cause, we should be extremely skeptical of them.

Psychiatric diagnosis is unregulated, so the doctor who met briefly with the aforementioned patient wasn’t required to spend much time understanding what caused her heart to race or to seek another doctor’s opinion. If he had, the patient would have realized that her bipolar diagnosis wasn’t necessary or appropriate. Neither on her ER trip nor in later visits to therapists did anyone explain how sleep deprivation impairs the body’s ability to handle pressure.

In our increasingly psychiatrized world, the first course is often to classify anything but routine happiness as a mental disorder, assume it is based on a broken brain or a chemical imbalance, and prescribe drugs or hospitalization; even electroshock is still performed.

According to the psychiatrists’ bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which defines the criteria for doling out psychiatric labels, a patient can fall into a bipolar category after having just one “manic” episode lasting a week or less. Given what this patient was dealing with, it is not surprising that she was talking quickly, had racing thoughts, was easily distracted and was intensely focused on certain goals (i.e. caring for her family) — thus meeting the requisite four of the eight criteria for a bipolar diagnosis.

Continued here

DOES INSANITY CAUSE CRIME

by Thomas S. Szasz, M.D.

The following essay is reproduced here by permission of Sheldon Richman, Editor, Ideas on Liberty. Ideas on Liberty is published by The Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington‐on‐Hudson, NY 10533.

Szasz, T. “Does insanity ‘cause’ crime?” Ideas on Liberty, 50: 31‐32 (March), 2000.

ʺThe madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.ʺ ‐ Gilbert K. Chesterton

For three hundred years we have sidestepped confronting the truth about human desperation and depravity, and the horrors the desperate and the depraved can inflict on us and themselves.

In November 1999, Andrew Goldstein, a man with a long history of psychiatric encounters, was tried for murdering a young woman named Kendra Webdale by pushing her under a New York subway train. The defense was insanity. The jury was unable to agree on a unanimous verdict. Goldstein was retried in the spring of 2000.

Crimes Have Reasons, Not Causes
There was no dispute about the fact that Mr. Goldstein pushed Ms. Webdale to her death. Nor was there dispute about what, regardless of the juryʹs verdict, was to be Mr. Goldsteinʹs fate for the foreseeable future: he would be deprived of liberty (by being incarcerated in jail, a mental hospital, or a hybrid institution called a ʺforensic facilityʺ). The problem is that whenever a person factually guilty of committing a serious crime pleads insanity, the jury is asked to answer an intrinsically nonsensical question, namely, what ʺcausedʺ the defendant to commit his wrongful act: his self or his mental illness? If the former, then he is a guilty victimizer. If the latter, then he is an innocent victim (of insanity). I say the question is nonsensical because, regardless of whether a person is (deemed to be) sane or insane, he has reasons, not causes, for his action. If we regard the actorʹs reasons as absurd or ʺcrazy,ʺ we call him insane or mentally ill. However, that does not prove that an alleged condition (ʺinsanityʺ or ʺmental illnessʺ) caused him to commit the forbidden act. In short, the insanity defense combines and conflates two problematic elements about ʺinsanityʺ: 1) what is ʺitʺ (as a phenomenon or disease)?; 2) does it cause and excuse bad behavior?

Although no one can define insanity, nearly everyone believes that he can recognize it ʺwhen he sees it.ʺ Still, the question remains: What is ʺitʺ? In principle, this question ought to be debatable. In practice, it is not: all socially recognized authorities agree that insanity is a brain disease.

For the sake of clarifying the issue before us, let us admit that (false) claim. In that case, insanity is similar, say, to Parkinsonism or a stroke, brain diseases diagnosed and treated by neurologists. A brain disease may, indeed, be a cause. But a cause of what? Typically, of a behavioral deficit, such as weakness, blindness, paralysis. No brain disease causes complex, coordinated behaviors, such as the crimes committed by Andrew Goldstein or John Hinckley, Jr.

The insane person is, after all, a person, a human being. Only legal tradition and psychiatric‐professional self‐interest, not facts or logic, compel the law to frame the juryʹs task as a choice between deciding whether an insane defendant is bad or mad—guilty (by reason of free will) or not guilty (by reason of insanity). If a ʺmad killerʺ is sick, he could—like an HIV‐infected killer or a tubercular killer—be imprisoned for his crime and ʺtreatedʺ for his illness in prison.

Millions of people are said to be mentally ill or insane. Not all of them commit crimes. Although a mad person such as Mr. Goldstein is regarded as being mad much of the time or even all of the time, he kills only some of the time. When a mad person kills someone—just as when he petitions a court to be released or eats his dinner—he does so because he decides to do so. Hence, if the madman commits a crime, justice demands that we take him seriously and punish him for his deed.

The Insanity Defense: From Solution to Problem
The insanity defense, as we know it, is a relatively new cultural invention. I believe it is not possible to understand the problems it causes unless we understand the problems it solved in the past and solves today.

The ʺcrimeʺ that led to the creation of the insanity defense was not murder, but a deed long considered even more heinous, namely, self‐murder or suicide, punished by both ecclesiastic and secular penalties: the suicide was denied religious burial and his estate was forfeited to the Crownʹs Almoner. Because punishing suicide required doing grave harm to innocent parties—that is, to the suicideʹs children and spouse—men sitting on coronerʹs juries eventually found the task to be a burden they were unwilling to bear. However, prevailing religious beliefs precluded repealing the laws punishing the crime. The law now came to the rescue of the would‐be punishers, offering them the option of finding the self‐killer non compos mentis and hence not responsible for his deed. In the eighteenth century, it became a matter of routine for juries to arrive at the posthumous diagnosis that the suicide was insane at the moment he killed himself. (The criminal law against suicide was repealed only in the nineteenth century, by which time it had been replaced by mental health laws.)

The celebrated English jurist William Blackstone (1723‐1780) recognized the subterfuge and warned against it: ʺBut this excuse [of finding the offender to be non compos mentis] ought not to be strained to the length to which our coronerʹs juries are apt to carry it, viz., that every act of suicide is an evidence of insanity; as if every man who acts contrary to reason had no reason at all; for the same argument would prove every other criminal non compos, as well as the self‐murderer.ʺ It was too late. By validating the fiction that suicides could, post facto, be found to have been non compos mentis, the law had crafted a mechanism for rejecting responsibility—the criminalʹs for his deed, the juryʹs for its duty—and, aided by the medical profession, wrapped the deception and self‐deception in the mantle of healing and science.

We must keep in mind that the impetus for excusing self‐murder did not come from its ostensible beneficiaries, the victims of the law against suicide. Clearly, it could not have come from them: the self‐killer was dead; his family, bereft of means and reputation, was powerless. Instead, the impetus for the insanity defense came from those who needed it and had the political clout to make law and medicine embrace it—that is, judges and lawyers, coroners and mad‐doctors. Coronerʹs juries and judges could thus evade the burden of having to impose harsh penalties on the corpses of suicides and the widows and orphans they left behind; and physicianʹs could pride themselves for saving innocent persons from suffering for the sin‐crimes of ʺinsaneʺ self‐killers.

The result of the practice of routinely excusing suicides of their sin‐crimes by viewing them as insane was that persons suspected of being suicidal began to be incarcerated in insane asylums. Soon that, too, became a routine practice and reinforced the belief that persons who kill themselves or others are insane, and that the insane are likely to kill themselves or others.

Copyright 2001, by The Foundation for Economic Education
Thomas S. Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility:
Copyright © 1998‐2001 by the author of each page, except where noted. All rights reserved.

The Illegality of Forced Drugging and Electroshock

 

POSTED ON MAD IN AMERICA, on MARCH 21, 2012

BY JIM GOTTSTEIN 

Court ordered psychiatric drugging and electroshock is illegal when measured against the constitutional requirements for forcing someone to ingest drugs, or be subjected to electroshock, against their will.

Under the United States Constitution, if a right is considered “fundamental,” in order to infringe on that right, the government is (a) required to have a compelling interest (reason),  (b) the method chosen to further that interest must be reasonably assured to achieve its objective, and (c) the method must be narrowly tailored, meaning there cannot be a less restrictive or intrusive means of achieving the objective.  This was most recently articulated in 2003 by the United States Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, as follows:

Our opinions applying the doctrine known as “substantive due process” hold that the Due Process Clause prohibits States from infringing fundamental liberty interests, unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.

Let’s apply these principles to forced drugging and electroshock.  In 2003 the United States Supreme Court  also decided Sell v. United States, in which the government wanted to force Dr. Sell, a dentist, to take neuroleptics, to ”restore” him to competence so he could stand trial for health care fraud.  The U.S. Supreme Court held such forced drugging permissible under the constitution only when the following conditions are met:

1. The court must find that important governmental interests are at stake.
2. The court must conclude that involuntary medication will significantly further those concomitant state interests.
3. The court must conclude that involuntary medication is necessary to further those interests. The court must find that any alternative, less intrusive treatments are unlikely to achieve substantially the same results.
4. The court must conclude that administration of the drugs is medically appropriate, i.e., in the patient’s best medical interest in light of his medical condition.  (emphasis in original).

This is classic analysis of a fundamental right under the due process clause.  I will address each of these requirements in turn.

Governmental Interests

What is the government’s important interest in forcing someone to be psychiatrically drugged or electroshocked against their will?   It depends.  (The answer to all legal questions)   More specifically, there are various situations in which the issue comes up and the government’s interests are different in each one.

Standing Trial On Criminal Charges

In Sell, the government’s interest was to restore Dr. Sell to competency so that he could be put on trial for healthcare fraud.   To be competent to stand trial for a crime, a defendant must be able to understand the nature of the charges and be able to assist his or her lawyer.   Clearly, being able to put someone on trial for murder is an important enough governmental interest.   However, is putting someone on trial for “illegal use of telephone,” such as calling 911repeatedly, an important enough interest to force someone to take psychotropic drugs against their will?   I don’t think so.

 Civil Commitment

Most of the time we think of forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock in the context of civil commitment.   In this setting, there are two justifications (governmental interests).  The first is known as Parens Patriae, which is Latin for ”parent of the nation,” and means the government is stepping in to act as a parent for someone who cannot take care of him or herself.  In other words, “We are from the government and are here to help you.”    In order for the government to be able to assert this right, it has to prove the person is incompetent to decide for him or herself.  These determinations, in themselves, are illegitimate and could be the subject of an entire article, in itself.  However, I will limit this to a couple of comments.

First, one can look at the transcript of Faith Myers’ testimony (pp 0123-0148)) to decide for oneself whether she was incompetent to decline the medication and then look at the judge’s decision (pp  12-14).  To me, the judge’s decision that Faith was incompetent to decline the medication was a travesty.

Second, I will note that the reasoning to find someone incompetent to decline the medication or electroshock, is often circular in that when a person says they don’t want the psych drug(s) or electroshock because it doesn’t work and/or is harmful, that is cited as proof the person is delusional and incompetent.  In the Myers case, the psychiatrist testified in a deposition (pp 39 – 43) that if someone agrees to to take the medication, he decides the person is competent and if not, the person is incompetent.

In fact circular reasoning is enshrined in Alaska Statutes 47.30.837(d)(1)(B), where it provides, “denial of a significantly disabling disorder or impairment, when faced with substantial evidence of its existence, constitutes evidence that the patient lacks the capability to make mental health treatment decisions.”

The second justification for forced drugging and electroshock in the civil commitment context is safety, i.e., that the person must be drugged for their own safety or those of others.  This is known as the “Police Power” justification.  Forced drugging under this justification also tends to be an illegitimate process.  First, the safety risk must be extreme.  For example, under Alaska Statutes 47.30.838 (a)(1), emergency forced drugging is only allowed if, “there is a crisis situation, or an impending crisis situation, that requires immediate use of the medication to preserve the life of, or prevent significant physical harm, to the patient or another person.”

In one of the Bill Bigley cases, I took the deposition (PDf pages 34-37) of the hospital psychiatrist about her use of “emergency” medication, which makes clear that (a) she didn’t know what the legal requirements were and (b) Mr. Bigley was being drugged for non-existent emergencies.

Whether the government has a sufficiently important interest in most civil commitment cases is certainly subject to challenge in many cases.

Prison

Another common setting for forced psychiatric drugging is people convicted of crimes and in prison.  Being convicted of a crime and in prison as opposed to being charged with a crime and in jail is a huge difference, legally.  People in prison have the least legal protection.  Thus, with respect to forced psychiatric drugging in prison, the United States Supreme Court held in Washington v. Harper  that the government doesn’t have to show an important or compelling interest, just that it is ”reasonably related to legitimate penological interests,” holding :

[G]iven the requirements of the prison environment, the Due Process Clause permits the State to treat a prison inmate who has a serious mental illness with antipsychotic drugs against his will, if the inmate is dangerous to himself or others and the treatment is in the inmate’s medical interest.

Note, that even here, in order to be constitutional the court ordered drugging must be in the person’s medical interest.

OUTPATIENT COMMITMENT

Outpatient Commitment, where people are court ordered to take psychiatric drugs in the community has taken what I consider a bizarre turn.  In 2004, the high court of New York held in the K.L. case that a finding of incompetence was not required, nor was the fundamental right to be free of forced psychiatric drugging involved, because the outpatient commitment statute did not authorize forced drugging, saying “it  simply triggers heightened scrutiny on the part of the physician, who must then determine whether the patient may be in need of involuntary hospitalization.”  In other words, the New York high court held that an [outpatient commitment] order mandating a person take psychiatric drugs does not really compel the person to take psychiatric drugs.  This is a classic example of a court decision being divorced from reality.

There is, however, a 2008 New Mexico case, Protection and Advocacy System v. City of Albuquerque, that recognizes the delusional (my word) nature of the New York high court’s holding that New York’s outpatient commitment law does not involve court ordered medication:

‘R]egardless of whether there are sanctions in the Ordinance for failure to comply with court-ordered treatment, the coercive nature of a court order requiring treatment would clearly allow an act contrary to the statute’s mandate that an individual’s consent be obtained as long as the individual has capacity.”

However, since the City of Albuquerque  case involved whether the city’s ordinance conflicted with state statute and was therefore invalid, the issue was not front and center.

In any event, with respect to the governmental interests involved, in K.L. the New York high court held the police power justification applied as follows:

Inasmuch as an [outpatient commitment] order requires a specific finding by clear and convincing evidence that the patient is in need of assisted outpatient treatment in order to prevent a relapse or deterioration which would be likely to result in serious harm to self or others, the state’s police power justifies the minimal restriction on the right to refuse treatment inherent in an order that the patient comply as directed.

The court also held the parens patriae justification applied as follows:

[T]he state’s parens patriae interest in providing care to its citizens who are unable to care for themselves because of mental illness is properly invoked since an AOT order requires findings that the patient is unlikely to survive safely in the community without supervision;  the patient has a history of lack of compliance with treatment that has either necessitated hospitalization or resulted in acts of serious violent behavior or threats of, or attempts at, serious physical harm;  the patient is unlikely to voluntarily participate in the recommended treatment  plan;  the patient is in need of assisted outpatient treatment in order to prevent a relapse or deterioration which would be likely to result in serious harm to the patient or others;  and it is likely that the patient will benefit from [outpatient commitment].

There are many aspects of this that could be discussed at length, but I will just make two short comments.  The first is that the court held the patient must benefit from the drugging, which is highly dubious, at best.   The second, more over-arching, is that many of the requirements for obtaining an outpatient commitment order in New York cannot, in fact, be properly proven in most cases, such as the person is unlikely to survive without the forced drugging.  Again, that so many of these orders get issued demonstrates where I think the legal system vis-à-vis involuntary commitment and forced drugging is most broken, which is the lawyers assigned to represent people don’t do their job.

Forced Drugging Furthering Governmental Interest

The second Sell requirement is that the involuntary medication will significantly further the state interests justifying the forced drugging.  In other words, the forced drugging must accomplish the goal that justifies it.   So, again, the setting matters because that determines what is the state interest(s).   In the restore-a-criminal-defendant-to-competency situation so the state can put the person on trial, the forced drugging must therefore have a good likelihood of making someone competent to stand trial.   However, while in some cases drugs do knock down psychosis, most of the time they merely sedate the person so they are not bothersome.   This was classically stated in the recent reporting in connection with forced drugging of Jared Loughner:

He was removed from a May 25 court hearing when he lowered his head to within inches of the courtroom table, then lifted his head and began a loud and angry rant. But his psychologist has said that since Loughner has been forcibly medicated, his condition has improved. He sat still and expressionless for seven hours at a hearing in September.

Query:  Is sitting still and expressionless for seven hours an indication someone understands the charges against him and can assist his lawyer?   Of course not, it merely shows that the drugs prevent him from being disruptive.  In other words, the assertion that the drugs cause someone to become competent to stand trial can be challenged.  As an aside, I am not in favor of people using mental illness as a way to avoid criminal responsibility for their actions.

In the civil commitment and outpatient commitment contexts, it is also very dubious that the forced drugging will actually achieve the stated goals.   First, we know from Anatomy of an Epidemic and other sources that psychiatric drugs (a) increase rather than decrease violence, (b) dramatically shorten lives, (c) dramatically increase disability; and (d) dramatically decrease recovery.  Thus, it is quite questionable in many cases whether especially the parens patriae justification, in fact, exists.   However, even though psychiatric drugs, especially the antidepressants and neuroleptics, increase violence, the neuroleptics can also render people incapable of causing much trouble.  Thus, neuroleptics very well may further the governmental police power interest in that.

However, it is most often not true that the drugs accomplish the asserted justification for the forced drugging.  Again, the reason why so many forced drugging orders are issued is because the lawyers assigned to represent people, don’t do so.

Less Intrusive Alternatives

The third Sell requirement is the court must conclude that involuntary medication is necessary to further those interests; that there are no less intrusive alternatives.  The Alaska Supreme Court, in the Bigley case, addressed what the requirement means under the Alaska Constitution,

Although the state cannot intrude on a fundamental right where there is a less intrusive alternative, the alternative must actually be available, meaning that it is feasible and would actually satisfy the compelling state interests that justify the proposed state action.

(p. 31)

As Anatomy of an Epidemic, and many studies and other sources demonstrate, as a factual matter, this is rarely the case, especially if the government has to prove there are no less intrusive alternatives by clear and convincing evidence.

Here too, the lawyers appointed to represent people facing forced drugging rarely fulfill their obligation to assert the right to a less intrusive alternative.  However, proving there is a less intrusive alternative can be difficult even if the attorney tries because the hospital has an automatic “expert,” the testifying psychiatrist, while the defendant often does not have the resources to employ an expert or otherwise prepare a case.

In Bigley,  starting at page 30, the Alaska Supreme Court’s discussion of this issue can give one an idea of the way a court looks at it and the difficulties in prevailing.   In addition to the lawyers assigned to represent people not doing their job properly, one of the biggest obstacles is appellate judges, just like trial court judges, believe the common wisdom that the drugs are helpful and nothing else works.  As I wrote in A Three Pronged Approach to Mental Health System Change, this is one of the reasons why educating the public about the truth is so important.

 Best Interests

The final Sell requirement and the one that ultimately leads me inexorably to the conclusion that forced drugging  and electroshock cannot be properly ordered, is the “court must conclude that administration of the drugs is medically appropriate, i.e., in the patient’s best medical interest in light of his medical condition.”  The truth is that while a small percentage of people might rationally decide to take neuroleptics with full knowledge of their lack of effectiveness for most and harm to all, it is not possible for a court to legitimately find by clear and convincing evidence that forcing someone to take them is in their best interest.   Frankly, I don’t think it is possible under the preponderance of evidence standard.

Space doesn’t allow me go through the evidence on this, but Anatomy of an Epidemic  does.   Much of the evidence has also been compiled as part of PsychRights’ and MindFreedom’s Forced Drugging Defense Package.  It includes an affidavit from Robert Whitaker, the“clickable”  verson of which has hyperlinks to the cited studies.   Also, my 2008, law review article, Involuntary Commitment and Forced Psychiatric Drugging in the Trial Courts: Rights Violations as a Matter of Course has much of the same material woven with the legal standards and the perspective of people faced with such court proceedings.  The bottom line is the evidence does not support forcing someone to take psychiatric drugs against their will is in their best interests.

The same is true of electroshock in light of the harm and lack of benefit from electroshock.  In contrast to the neuroleptics, however, I think electroshock should be abolished altogether in light of its complete lack of benefit and extreme harm.

 Conclusion

Under the United States Constitution, as well as state constitutions, the government is not allowed to force someone to take psychiatric drugs or be electroshocked against their will unless it can prove such drugging or electroshocking is (1) necessary to achieve a compelling governmental interest, (2) the least intrusive alternative, and (3) in the person’s best interest.   In most cases, neither the 1st or 2nd requirement is met because  (1) the drugging or electroshock does not accomplish the government interest asserted, and (2) there are less intrusive alternatives.   The last element, that the forced drugging or electroshock is in the person’s best interest, however, cannot be legitimately proven, which is why I conclude forced drugging and electroshock in the United States is illegal.

The question that jumps out from these circumstances is why people’s rights are being so pervasively violated?  The short answer, as I indicated in A Three Pronged Approach to Mental Health System Change, is the lawyers and judges believe the conventional wisdom that if the defendant wasn’t crazy she would know it is good for her so we won’t let her pesky constitutional rights get in the way.  This is why educating the public is so important.

In addition to this, however,  a big reason why people’s rights are being violated as a matter of course is the lawyers appointed to represent people faced with forced drugging and electroshock proceedings are not fulfilling their professional obligations when they go along with this.  But that is the subject of a future blog.

 

Electroshock Therapy: Is Oprah Right? Electric Shock Mental Health Treatment, Breeding Psychetruth

Medical Beauty Center, March 21, 2012

Friend us: http://www.Facebook.com Electroshock Therapy Is Oprah Right? Electric Shock Mental Health Treatment, Breeding Psychetruth Related Videos by Dr. Breeding: The Truth about Mental Health Disorders – Psychology http://www.youtube.com ECT, Electroshock, Electroconvulsive Therapy, Psychiatry http://www.youtube.com Dr. John Breeding, Ph.D. Psychologist testifies before the Austin City Council about Electroshock Therapy http://www.youtube.com ECT, Electroshock Therapy & The FDA Part 1, Psychology John Breeding http://www.youtube.com ECT, Electroshock Therapy & The FDA Part 2, Psychology John Breeding http://www.youtube.com Recovery from Mental Health Drugs & How to Find Help, Psychiatric Survivor Psychetruth http://www.youtube.com Dealing With Stigma & Isolation, Mental Illness Labels, Psychiatric Survivors, Psychetruth http://www.youtube.co

 

 

Laura’s law is a VIOLATION of human rights!

San Francisco Chronicle quotes Dr. Mitch Katz saying, ‘psychosis requires medication’… we have one comment for him… ‘GET EDUCATED!!!’

‘Psychosis’, as defined by psychiatry, means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a “loss of contact with reality”. Depending on its severity, this may be accompanied by unusual, bizarre behavior, or difficulty with social interaction & impairment in carrying out the daily life activities (Wikipedia).

In many countries outside the U.S., the experience of ‘psychosis’ is seen as a spiritual emergence and/or a religious experience and/or enlightenment. Dr. Mitch Katz has deeply offended many people who perceive ‘psychosis’ as such. He should be educated completely before drawing any conclusions about ‘thought-disordered’ states, unless he is willing to suggest medicating all people who drink an alcoholic drink, take other drugs, including all MEDICATIONS, which affect our thoughts!

To further the confusion, Mayor Newsom has also commented by saying that family members will have another tool to seek help for their loved ones before they harm themselves or others. He doesn’t realize that human & civil rights are at sake here and suggests completely violating the U.S. constitution! Mr. Newsom, dear Major, are you ready to take your family’s opinion about your heart condition or any other ‘condition’ you may have? Ms. Alioto-Pier, are you ready for your family to determine your future, due to your ‘conditions’?

Please e-mail Rachel Gordon at rgordon@sfchronicle.com with your letters and comments about Laura’s Law. Perhaps, she’ll have the curtesy to hear all sides and publish them as well!

The following is from the San Francisco Chronicle… August 4, 2010

Rather than watch her legislation to enact Laura’s Law in San Francisco go down to defeat Tuesday, Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier at the last minute sent the proposal back to committee for further debate in the early fall.

Alioto-Pier’s decision came after San Francisco’s public health director, Dr. Mitch Katz, made a forceful argument to reject the legislation that would allow the city’s mental health chief to petition the civil court to order people with severe mental illness into outpatient treatment.

“Psychosis requires medication and Laura’s Law does not increase our ability to require medication,” Katz told supervisors.

“There is a basic ethical principle in public health,” he added. “Ethical principle is not infringing on someone’s rights unless you have an efficacious treatment. And because Laura’s Law doesn’t allow for medication, I do not believe it fulfills that ethical principle.”

Alioto-Pier knew heading into the board meeting that the vote could go either way. But after Katz made clear his opposition during testimony before the board, winning approval would be “hard but not impossible,” Alioto-Pier said after keeping her legislation from a vote.

However, she said afterward, “I’m committed to getting this done.”

She will have the support of Mayor Gavin Newsom, who bucked his public health director’s opinion, and said Tuesday that he supports Alioto-Pier’s efforts and would like to see San Francisco give Laura’s Law a try. It would give families another tool, he said, to seek help for their loved ones before they harm themselves or others.

Mental health professionals have been split over the state law, which was enacted in 2002.

It was named after Laura Wilcox, a 19-year-old college student who was working in a Nevada County public mental health clinic when she was gunned down by a 41-year-old man with a history of violence who resisted his family’s efforts to get him treatment.

The state left implementation to individual counties, and so far only Nevada County has enacted it fully; Los Angeles County implemented a limited pilot program.

In making her case, Alioto-Pier said that criminal defendants with mental health problems who go through the city’s Behavioral Health Court system and are provided with treatment services as an alternative to incarceration have shown a decrease in psychiatric hospitalization, violence and homelessness.

“Unfortunately in San Francisco, an individual has to commit a crime before receiving these structured treatments,” she said.

Opponents said a chief concern was that the city doesn’t have enough money now to provide services for mentally ill people who voluntarily want them.

“We do not have the resources to be able to enact Laura’s Law,” said Supervisor John Avalos.

Supervisor Chris Daly added, “It’s bad politics, it’s bad form, and having been here fighting to save a $2 million cut here, a $3 million cut there (in existing mental health services), this is frustrating.”

Even if Laura’s Law never is put on the books in San Francisco, Katz said supporters shouldn’t despair.

“The best thing that can come out of this debate is a renewed commitment on the part of San Franciscans to do something meaningful both for people who are impacted themselves and for their family members who are often made to feel disempowered by the system, who are often sort of on the fringes crying, watching their relatives deteriorate,” Katz said.

“Maybe,” he said, “we haven’t put enough attention into this issue.”