Individual and Organizational Endorsers
WE THE PEOPLE
MENTAL
HEALTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT, INC
THE OPAL PROJECT
Eva Dech
Amy Colesante
Lauren Tenney
Kathryn Cascio
Forced Treatment=Torture.
Human Rights for all. Stop giving into political knee jerk responses that only promote more misinformation and discrimmination!
Marian Merlino
It's more than time to ask people caught up in the psychiatric industry, what would
they like to see as alternatives. I was handcuffed and taken away in a police car myself. I don't remember this
experience as being therapeutic!
Eric O. Jackson
NO to Kendra's Law. YES to Alternatives. Funding needs to be allocated to implement the alternative
solutions proposed by this group of great New Yorkers and great Americans. Alternative solutions need an opportunity to work
better than what has evidently not worked in the past. It is the humane thing to do.
Gerald L. Bliss, D.D.
I am President of Asheville homeless
Network. The homeless are routinely diagnosed as "mentally ill", when often getting them housing and supports
solve all their problems. This law would add further problems and additional stigmas to their lives, not reduce them.
Scarlet Bonne
NO permanence
and NO extension to Kendra's Law. It's a violation of human rights.
I was inpatient 26 times and supposedly "bipolar".
Without the psych drugs, I have never again been hospitalized, and it's clear that the "bipolar" was iatrogenic.
If I had not escaped the psychiatric system, I'm certain I would be dead by now from the effects of the psychiatric
drugs and the mistreatment in hospitals.
Instead, I have regained my life and my health. That ONLY happened because
I had the choice to say no and the resources to choose alternative care.
Choice. Not force.
Isaac S. Brown
Please stop forced treatment of
people .people should have the choice of how they can live their lives .being labeled with some mental health
label should not infringe on a personal life. please stop this outrageous so called law
Jon Forster
Assemblyman Ortiz, please vote No to extend Kendras
Law. Forced drugging is a violation of the right to self- determination and the right to equal protection under the law, i.e.
"informed consent", before recieving drugs.What's more, most of these drugs are nothing but a chemical lobotomy,
and dont help to make a person more independent and productive, but make them more dependent.
The drug companies
and the mental health system are the only benficiaries, while a whole class of people are slowly exterminated.
Vote No to Kendras Law and Yes to providing voluntary services, alternative therapies and counceling, housing, and vocational
training.
Laura
Ziegler
The discriminatory and violative "Kendra's Law" should
be abolished, not institutionalized.
Despite OMH spin, its primary accomplishment has been to add coercion to an already
highly coercive service system -- to the detriment of quality of care and quality of life of the affected individuals. The
people I've known who were subject to outpatient commitment experienced it as having a highly negative impact on their lives.
Nor did it prevent harm or hospitalizations. And one of these individuals died from adverse drug effects.
Darby Penney
Involuntary outpatient commitment is a both an ineffective waste of taxpayer dollars
and a violation of the human rights of people who are forcibly given dangerous drugs whose efficacy is questionable.
There are safer, more humane and more effective ways to assist people who experience extreme emotional distress. People of
color are being subjected to these interventions at a higher rate than whites. Most people in the public mental health system
are trauma survivors and forced outpatient treatment just reinforces the effects of trauma. New York can and should do better!
We can set an example for the rest of the nation by stepping back from this barbaric intervention.
Tina Bonneau
End Kendra's Law now. People need
choice in recovery, not force and coercion. Psychiatry is being used as a tool for social control and oppression. Tax dollars
are being spent to violate human rights. Use those dollars to provide alternatives, choices and much needed social resources.
If those resources had been in place, Kendra Webdale would probably be alive today. Andrew Goldstein ASKED for psychiatric
treatment, but was turned away.
Stop violating human rights, and stop letting interest groups capitalize on tragedies
that could have been PREVENTED by the choice to access treatment. Andrew Goldstein wasn't given that choice. Keep marginalizing
people, and they get desperate. Remove freedom, and you remove any chance of recovery.
Rick S. Hill
Mr. Ortiz, please say NO to the extension
of kendra's law.
It has lead to countless incidence of abuse and torture of individuals in distress. Please support more
humane alternatives.
Aaron Bellve
It's detrimental to our society to use fear resulting from isolated incidents to control people who have committed
no crime. To strip away people's rights on the basis that they might potentially be future violent criminals is a step down
a very dangerous path. It's abusive in its very nature.
Jeffery Perry
I believe that AOT
has little basis in the facts and is misused and abused to replace other low-funded needs in mental health. More money should
be put toward real services, like peer supports and sel-advocacy, to balance between clinic treatments and person centered
treatment. AOT is just an imposter for more outside control of mental health services.
Carol Hayes Collier
I strongly object to the continuation of involuntary outpatient commitment.
We have so many more respectful ways of connecting with people who are seeking assistance that this form of imtimidation and
non recovery oriented legislation will continue to set us back to models of incarceration and force rather than hope and recognizing
people's gifts.
Don Weitz
I totally support WE THE PEOPLE'S press conferences
and protests to abolish involuntary outpatient commitment (IOC) and forced treatment in New York. IOCs and all other forced
psychiatric procedures are harmful, inhumane and serious violations of our human rights and must be challenged and stopped
now - by any means possible!
Don Weitz
antipsychiatry activist
Heiwa Salovitz
Shauna Reynolds
I believe that Kendra's
Law Should Not be permanent, & there should be No Extension. I also believe that "forced mental health treatment"
is extremely harmful to people with psychiatric histories, & that "alternative methods" should definitely be
explored and utilized.
Ronald Bassman, PhD
I am a person who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was confined in mental hospitals - private
and state - twice for more than a year. Because there was no forced treatment like Kendra's Law at that time (the 1960's),
I was able to recover in the way that was best for me. Given that opportunity, I went to school, earned my Ph.D and have been
a licensed psychologist for more than 3 decades. By the way I do not take any psychiatric drugs nor do I participate
in any kind of therapy. Please reject Kendra's law, a law that will deprive people like me the opportunity to recover
and lead a full life. Ron Bassman, author of the book "A Fight to Be: A Psychologist's Experience From Both Sides of
the Lock Door."
Deb Damone
There are better ways to methods to help peers that
a symptomatic! People need to be empowered not hovered over or cuddled. They need to know their worth which does not come
from AOT or any other forced cohersion. Let's use our resoureces, our best being theose who the system wants to put on AIT!
Betty-Jane Antanavicius
I wholeheartedly endorse your efforts to end IOT, having been through the "system"
myself, and now find myself with various
"hobbies". I feel that my potential as a human being has been totally
stripped by the ( mostly} male medical model. We definitely need alternatives, in New York and
in North America in general.
A note from Guelph, Ontario, home of Homewood Centre, our drug-pushing center. All for profits, no doubt, and certainly not
for human(e)
needs.
Frank Blankenship
Psychiatric drugs harm people. Psychiatric
treatment today is all too ofter a matter of dispensing psychiatric drugs. Nobody should be forced to take these powerful
and harmful psychiatric drugs against his or her will. Forced drugging is wrong regardless of whether the court has ordered
it, or some mental health professional promotes it. End Kendra's Law. Support humane and safe alternatives in mental health.
Lauren Spiro
stop the inhuman
torture of people who need understanding, compassion, patience and our intelligent minds thinking about how to assist them
rather than supress their humanity
Jody Szczech
Fred Arthur Tenzer
Stop arbitrarily determining
what constitutes a "mental illness" (whatever that means). Kendra's Law does not address peoples' real issues and
therefore must be abolished.
Aprille J. Rhomer
I have been tortured in the psychprison
known as St, Joseph's in Toronto, Ontario several times.
I was homeless for 15 years and during those times any time
I cried or told people to fuck off and leave me alone the police were called and I would be kidnapped, chianed to the bed
and beaten by orderlies while "doctors" smirked and giggled and mocked me and name-called me. I all-ways believed
I was going to be murdered in there and I have no evidence to believe that they wouldn't.
I unfortunately cannot attend
but feel free to use my story.
Elizabeth Derickson
THE BAKER ACT
OF FLORIDA
Theoretically, laws are enacted for protection of individuals and
societies. They are not intended to infringe on the individual rights and freedoms of those who do not challenge their
standards. The Baker Act of Florida legislative intent was designed to allow for involuntarily admission of individuals into
psychiatric facilities who exhibit symptoms of mental illness, adjudicating them mentally incompetent, incapacitated or potentially
posing a threat of neglect or harm to themselves or that of others (need not be imminent).
From the professional perspective and experiences of this therapist along with supporting clinical
evidence, the abuse of the Baker Act Law is persistent and pervasive. While Baker Act cases can be initiated by licenced mental
health professionals, law enforcement officials and judges, the vast majority are handled by the police (Treatment Advocacy
Center, 2003). The Baker Act of Florida streamlines the process of involuntary commitments. The Baker Act is not
only widely open to abuse but is being abused daily. The Baker Act does not require a judge to sign a commit order.
A spouse, relative, or domestic partner may call a doctor or law enforcement officer and have an individual committed based
on their personal testimony. A doctor who has never seen the individual as a patient may order a commitment based on
the testimony of another person. Police officers are empowered with the authority to involuntarily commit individuals
to psychiatric facilities solely based on th!
eir untrained psychological assessments
and unprofessional opinions. Once in the psychiatric facility, patients are often coerced into signing in voluntarily
as they are aware of the Baker Act law and recourse of involuntary commitment.
Does this seem archaic or constitutionally sound?
Elizabeth
Derickson
Daily
Dupre', Jr.
In Louisiana, there was the same 'knee-jerk' reaction to the
murder of a New Orleans police officer, Nicola Cotton by a person with mental health problems. The incident occured following
the lack of mental health services following Hurricane Katrina.
Meaningful Minds of Louisiana advocated not to
pass the Nicola Law (involuntary in-patient treatment) in the state legislature, at mental health advocacy events and by petition
to prevent enactment of this archaic legislation. However, there was overwhelming support of the state legislators and the
bill was made into law.
What is needed is peer specialists and WRAP facilitators to ensure true recovery. Although,
these individuals are currently trained, they are not being paid sufficiently, nor give enough hours to make a significant
difference.
I have been a national & state mental health advocate for over 30 years and our govenment officials
in Louisiana do not get IT! They pay lip service to recovery and do not understand or unwilling to understand the significance
that involuntary treatment whether for in-patient or outpatient treatment demands human rights and abolishing of forced psychiatric
practices is not a workahle solution.
I have been involuntarily committed on four occasions and I can say that
the trauma of being treated at state hospitals far from home, the devastation and trauma that result are horrific to the individuals
and their fmailies.
Stop Involuntary forced psychiatic treatment for all throughout the USA and internationally!
Daily Dupre', Jr.
Louisiana
Ryan Jetttie Launcelot Sparks
please stop psychiatric
tortue by not supporting a bill that would make psychiatric torture permanent in the form of permanent out-patient forced
psychiatric medication.
i will let the professionals speak about the horrors of the toxicity of forced medication. please
consult the works and court cases of Dr. Peter Breggin. he is psychiatrist who has written about the toxicities of psychiatric
medication. he has also testified successfully in many court cases. also, please read Dr. Grace E. Jackson's books on the
dangers of the toxicities of psychiatric medication. she is a psychiatrist who is working hard to get the message out of the
toxicities of psychiatric medication.
also, understand that giving a person psychiartric medication will make their healing
impossible and lead to their early death from its toxicities. this is a violation of their person and certainly against the
Constitution which guaratees due process of law.
making forced psychiatric medication permanent would be a tremendous
mistake in your political career. there are many people working to stop this form of psychiatric torture and we will not stop
until people are free from it and are able to choose their own method of healing. toxic psychiatry causes more harm than good.
regards,
Ryan Sparks
Jessica Arenella
Psychiatric patients should not be deprived of
basic civil rights! No other class of patients is forced to undergo a particular form of treatment against their will -- even
if it results in imminent death!
Rabea Chaudhary
If you want people to act less crazy, make it
easier for them to access help in a way they feel helpful. As we have seen from decades of experience, forced treatment has
a very low success rate. Modern psychotherapies depend on the development of a trusting relationship between provider
and client. This kind of relationship is much more difficult to achieve with someone forced to be there against his/her will.
It may be politically easy to vote for forced treatment but what you really need to do is improve access.
-A therapist
in California
Diana
Gonzalez
Please don't make invountary drugging mandatory. This would
only make recovery harder and longer to reach. Medication is not a solution, stop aiding Big Pharma at the expense of
people going trhrough a crisis or weak.
Bonnie Uffman, PhD
Lawrence Wetzler, Ph.D.
Are you "lawmakers"
aware of how incredibly destructive involuntary "treatment" can be?
Lennard J. Davis
I'm against
forced drugging of people with psychiatric disorders.
Azle Hill Beckner
Personal freedom
is the main point of the Constitution. We cannot abandon the Bill of Rights and remain a democratice country.
Leah Harris
Force
is force is force, whether in someone's home or in an institutional setting. Forced psychiatric "treatment" is torture
and it needs to stop. Our bodies, our minds, our spirits, our choices, our lives. We the people decide!!
Felice Debra Eliscu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN_Ip6_31G8
Tracy
Alexis, PhD
"Mental
Illness" is a a myth. There is NO such thing as mental illness! There is NO etiology for the alleged diagnosis
of mental illness. Unlike diabetes where one can locate elevated blood sugar levels as the 'cause' for the diagnosis
of diabetes, there is no place in the brain that can be definitively stated as the 'cause' for mental illness. MI is
a label of unwanted or misunderstood behaviors, most of which come from years of childhood trauma. In order to provide
effective 'treatment,' we need to reinstate talk therapy and do away with psychotropic medications (which have ALL - every
last one of them - been linked to toxic, and fatal, side effects)!
Sonia Weaver
Dear Assemblyman Ortiz,
I am writing to you to call for No Permanence and No Extension of Kendra's Law:
Involuntary Outpatient Torture. As a person with a psychiatric history I know first hand the importance of the right to refuse
treatment as a cornerstone of a free society. Sadly, it seems that the financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies
and the psychiatric industry are making treatment decisions instead of the people themselves. Please join the movement for
choice and human rights in the mental health system by opposing involuntary outpatient torture.
Duane Sherry, M.S., CRC-R
Forced psychiatric drugging is inhumane and needs to stop.
There are many
forms of integrative medicine and other therapies that work much better... Safer and more effective -
http://discoverandrecover.wordpress.com/mental-health-freedom-and-recovery-act/
Duane Sherry, M.S., CRC-R
Bill Simpson
Assemblyman Ortiz,
Please stop this torture
and do not let any futher laws be enacted on the innocent people of New York on for psychiatric drugging. We have issues already
around the world with people hearing voices and hallucinations from technology used in the psychiatric community. The entire
psyciatric industry should be investigated.
Thank you for your time.
Alice Lillie
We WILL BE heard! Rights come from God and are inalienable. This truth is expressed in the Declaration Of Independence.
What it means is that rights accrue to the individual, do not come from government, and cannot be taken away by government.
One of these rights is sovereignity over one's body. This means individuals can decide what will and what *will not* go into
their body. I support all resistance to involuntary drugging.
Gerhard Bedding
Nobody should be forced to take powerful and often harmful psychiatric drugs. End Kendra's Law and support
safe alternatives in mental health.
Patricia Bauerle
Froced psychiatric drugging is morally wrong and damages the brains of individuals. Everyone concerned should read
the following:
Peter Breggin's book entitled Toxic Psychiatry;
a book entitled Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry;
Robert
Whitaker's books: 1) Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, and 2) Anatomy
of an Epidemic.
David W. Oaks
As a survivor of forced psychiatric drug injections
back in the 1970's when I was a teenager, it saddens me that Americans living out in the community, in their own home, can
be subject to powerful psychiatric drugs that can even cause brain damage. Certainly, if someone chooses to take prescribed
psychiatric drugs that's their choice. But to force people is an atrocity. Please recognize the immense human rights violation
involved with coercion in mental health. Please investigate the scandal of taxpayer funding for these psychiatric drugs, such
as the "atypical antipsychotics," which are so expensive, but now shown to be so harmful. Please investigate
brain damage caused by these drugs.
Sincerely,
David W. Oaks, Director, MindFreedom International
Nancy Pontius
We want choices! Meds are killing some of us. The hospitals are abusive!
Shaindl Diamond
MICHELLE WARD
Attn: FELIX ORTIZ AND COMMITTEE
Most
people labelled with a mental illness are actually misdiagnosed. Many
mental illnesses don't even exist at all.
And, as for the ones that do exist,
there are harmless alternatives for them. Opinions also vary by psychiatrists
and people altogether. i.e., when Mr. Ortiz makes a person's individual
idenitity his problem--most people
don't see a person's individual identity as a
problem, *but* we do find Mr. Ortiz's individual identity to be a problem.
Perhaps Mr. Ortiz needs some treatment for his problem. Mr. ortiz, we the
people feel you have a major problem,
and we want to make you aware of this
problem since you may not be aware that you have a problem . . . because most
people like you, just aren't aware of their problem. Mr. Ortiz, would you mind
being trapped at the State
Hospital and subjected to rape, assault, and being
forcibly drugged with toxins that permanently damage your brain and
body(toxins
which will be banned one day)? I'm sure you'll love the c!
ompany of child abuse victims
and sex abuse victims . . . they'll be oh so
happy to tell you about how someone molested or raped them or how someone
abused
them and how the abusers or rapists were then able to take advantage of the laws
and the mental health
system to make them look mentally ill and were successful
at having much of their memory erased with brain damaging
drugs and
electroshock! Mr. Ortiz, do you think you don't have a problem and that you're
"untouchable"?
Mr. Ortiz, you may just find yourself in a state hospital . . .
oh, don't worry, you may just forget how to spell your
name and you may have
involuntary bowel movements--but drug manufacturers will give you a small
settlement so
you will be able to buy Depends!
Reba McDowall
People with mental
health issues have a right to choose which
treatment they receive. Forced medication and electroshock therapy is criminal.
Krista Erickson
Please allow Kendra's Law to sunset/expire in June of 2010. A law with
proven racial disparities in its effects and that inherently deprives people of
the most basic civil and human
rights should not be extended much less extended!
Forced treatment is not helpful or effective. Force can not replace
a lack of
humane, cost-effective and successful alternatives to the current mental health
system. Thank you.
Jennifer F
Felix Ortiz, you have two choices... which is two more
than the
victims of Kenra's Law have.
You
can either put an end to the crimes against humanity committed daily against
those
labeled mentally ill under the auspices of this immoral law....
Or you can have blood
on your hands.
Simple as that.
Forced drugging
is a crime against humanity. How in good conscience can you
forcibly alter a brain
no physician has ever physically examined and proved
diseased?
These drugs are not 'medication', they are tranquilizers... pure and simple.
These laws seek to tranquilize people like animals.
Human rights for every
human.
Maureen Harkness
Its false economy to drug people as it disables them and leads to
longerterm health problems. Support which
allows people to come to terms with
grief and trauma would not only be more humane and compassionate and respectful
but also more 'cost effective' and 'safe' to society.
Kieran Gerard
Fransis Hawley
Having expienced ice
water therapy, electroshock and an averted
lobotomy I strongly oppose forced treatment
Inez Kochius
Please say 'No' to 'Kendra's Law'. If anybody is truly concerned
about mental health, one would not resort to force.
My friend was repeatedly arrested and thrown into psychwards. Hardly
therapeutic
or healing treatments! Last time someone called the police on him,
his last
act of defiance was to go into freezing water of the Connecticut River
and consequently
drowned. In memory of my friend I urge you to do everything
possible to say
'No' to Kendra's Law. Psychiatry does more harm than good to
the people 'treated'.
Inez Kochius
Cambridge, Ontario
Delores M. Jankovich
I have a loved one who has received forced treatment and has been
damaged by it.
He is just now beginning to try to pull out of the terrible
situation he has been in. Forced treatment of any kind is
torture and results in
the person losing autonomy, economic stability, and severe adverse effects on
mind and
body, often leading to permanent injury and sometimes loss of life.
Amy Smith Voxfuror
The cartel of
Big Pharma, the APA & the psychiatric industry, the FDA
and many national advocacy groups has lied to us long enough.
The evidence
shows medications are at best the same as placebo, and have terrible,
life-threatening, soul-shattering
adverse effects. The claims of chemical
imbalances or the chronicity of serious mental illnesses are myths.
The
so-called chronicity is caused by the MEDS! Any law that puts me or my brothers
& sisters at risk
of being exposed to these poisons is unconstitional. We now
have the science to back us up and clear & compelling
evidence of the collusion
of these fiscally driven organizations to lie to us. This legislation would
provide
fertile ground for some well-considered gigantic lawsuits, looks like to
me.
Ellen Strathy
Jana Kaplan
Forced "therapeutic" interventions are NOT therapeutic!!!
Charlene Guldbrandsen
How is it that sought after mental health care can be denied and yet you seek a law to force intitutionalzation or
worse on "people" without consent. What we need is a mental health care that works for the people.
The Empowerment Center
The Empowerment Center unequivocally denounces the use of government intervention that
forces pseudo medical "practices" on a targeted group of defenseless people. Where the very treatment reduces
the longevity of those people subjected to these practices by 25 years.
IOC is truly a rationing of justice. It
impedes upon the liberty of an unguarded group of people for the sole benefit of a supercilious cluster of self righteous
ineffective "professionals."
Its about engagement Stupid.
I was a member of Dr. Sharon Carpinello's "AOT"
committee.
The evidence showed the engagement of people correlated with self improvement. Regardless if the person had
been taken to court! There is no need for the courts to be involved if the mental health agency is doing their job.
With this law the unintended role of the courts is more about monitoring of the mental health provider assuring the court
ordered agreement is carried out by the provider. Although providers have the power to make up and use the worn torn
excuse that they just couldnt engage the person because the person was just too hard to approach. For these people I
suggest a new line of employment. All of this is executed at the expense of personal liberty.
This law is inconsistently
applied from county to county. Westchester County's rate of court rulings favoring IOC is around 16% of the people investigated
for IOC and across the river in Rockland County 76% of the people investigated are court ordered. That is an egregious
practice of inconsistent ill-conceived law enforcement.
The discrimination and inequity of minorities, is evidenced by
a disproportionate percentage of African American males make up 44% of the people court ordered to IOC.
It is true $35,000,000
was added to the mental health budget. But the people receiving services didnt see any of that money. The budget
seems to grow and more money is thrown at conceived fear mongered problems, but the benefits arent found in the patients served.
Its actualized by the small group of people who administer the ineffective treatment.
It seems to me that each
year for the past 35 years we have been bombarded with a plethora of glorified new medications, tested with new psychological
modus operandi and offered a continuation of old effective techniques. With all of this progress one would think we
would see a reduction in the use of mental health services, because people are getting better. Not true, the roster
for people receiving treatment in the adult and children populations keeps growing expeditiously. We are not curing
mental illness we are securing an underclass of people who are preyed upon by an educated ineffective professional class who
change their appearance each year to disguise the perpetuation of the same old thing. Now this group wants the government
to permanently secure this to be so. Is not the very definition of insanity, doing something over and over again and
expecting different results? The only way mental health treatment will work is if the server effectively opens their
hear!
ts and connects on a human level with the people they serve. Until this is a realized and practiced norm,
we as a people can expect continued growth in the field of mental illness and its new treatments. Although, I learned
in my at John Jay College that as professionals our very purpose is to restore mental health and reduce peoples pain and suffering.
It is time to stop this societal atrocity and stop the rationing of justice, end IOC.
Jim Rye
Executive
Director,
The Empowerment Center
Harry Bentivegna Lichtenstein
I am against
extending New York State's Kendra's Law after it terminates in June, 2010.
Kendra's Law is a law that legalizes
involuntary outpatient treatment for people designated by psychiatrists and psychologists as being "dangerous".
I will now discuss why I am opposed to Kendra's Law in depth. First, I strongly support the freedom to make our own
health choices, as an inalienable right, in regards to life style, diet,dietary supplements, health care providers, treatment
or non treatment, and to decide if you want external help for anything that is health related. Most people would not
choose the harmful drugs with serious side effects that sometimes include the very behaviors the drugs are supposed to be
treating (e.g., side effects like making people more prone to be violent or suicidal). Full disclosure of all side effects
of psychotropic drugs and all medication should be required by law.
I understand that people are concerned about being
hurt by other people. However, I know that it is impossible to know who will hurt other people and who will not do so.
Search the scientific literature if you don't believe me; you will not be able to find any valid way of doing this.
Furthermore, I believe that this is so because of our free will. Secondly, I strongly support the right of all American
citizens to be assumed innocent until proven guilty. If a law makes it legal to label people as being "dangerous"
and then "treating" them against their will, including incarceration in hospital wards; then that is tantamount
to convicting people of crimes that they are supposedly going to commit and punishing them. Connect the dots in
my discourse above and you'll understand my conclusion that people cannot be proven guilty of a crime that they haven't committed.
Only after someone commits a crime is it possible to prove them guilty, because no one is guilty of a crime!
unless
they commit one.
Kendra's law circumvents the constitutional rights of a sub population of American citizens who have
never committed a crime, but are treated as if they are convicted dangerous criminals.
I conclude that Kendra's
Law is unconstitutional. However, to avoid the costly and burdensome process of taking it to the Supreme
Court
of the United States, I strongly support simply not extending Kendra's Law. Let Kendra's Law terminate in June, 2010!
Lynne Jones
Forced outpatient treatment with toxic drugs is a violation of one's basic
human rights.
Louis Kayser
Forced drugging can be very profitable for some entities
and not excluding our lousy government.
Jeanne Coughlin
Abdul Maalik Makana
Forced
treatment of people is a violation of human rights... It violates international acceptable norms and is not inline with the
object and purpose of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities... Which the USA has signed
as a state party.
Hon.Ortiz, put a stop to crimes against humanity in the mental
system in NYS.
In support and solidarity,
Onwards and upwards,
Abdul Maalik Makana
Executive Director,
MindFreedom Kenya
Rebecca Edens
Hear Our Voice, talk to PEOPLE who receive services and who have managed to Recover in spite of the
system.
We are not DATA we are PEOPLE. Coercion is not informed Choice. Involuntary, Forced Treatment does not
work and is in fact HARMFULL.
Rebecca Edens
Marty Felker
This violation of civil
rights has gone on too long. Next step as in Ariz - lock 'em up if they look m.i
Angela M. Cerio
Before you consider the permenent legalization of inflicting court ordered ingestion/injections of mind numbing poisons
in the guise of clinical "intervention", please read Robert Whitaker's new book, "Anatomy of an Epidemic"
There ARE alternatives to psychiatric incarceration and forced drugging!!!
Rev.
Elijah Peters
I am in full agreeement with ms. Sabrina Johnson that people
stop forced mental health treatment.
Louis & Jane Frydman
Please stop involuntary
outpatient treatment. It's a crime against civilization.
Let's stop it - pure and simple!!
Terry Simpson
Force destroys trust and harms mental health. It causes more problems for people who already have
enough!
Amy Nolde
I am a consumer in South Carolina. I am doing extremely. Have a job, car,
and nice apartment. I am against involuntary outpatient committment!
Gail Warner
So many people are given
drug cocktails in hospitals only to go through difficult withdrawals being weaned ,off most, at their release. since they
function so well without the cocktails this should tell the pych business they don't need the drugs at all.
David F. Wooledge
Depression and Bipolar Support
Alliance Pensylvania
Mental-Health-Advocate.US
Katy Crawford
Ever been physically sick or injured?
Not able to function like the rest of the population? In your vulnerable state think as if you were wronged with involuntary
torture & injustice, and it was proven? Would your friends & family stand up for you? Or would they say that there
was not enough clear reason to confront your care-takers on your abuse. And there you sit, in fear and pain, without control,awaiting
more of the same. Remember this man is YOU, NOT AN EMPTY FACE.
Patti Beauchemin
This must be stopped!!!
Meghan Caughe
We the People and believe that your work is essential!
We need compassion and the tools for self-determnation and community integration,not forced
treaments!
Thank you for your work and know that in Oregon you have many persons
who are with you!
Meghan Caughey
Debbie Elwell
Treat people has WHOLE people, i work with people voluntary in and outside the so called Mental Health system and
it should be called the Mental WEALTH system because that is what it is really about!!!!
Graeme Bacque
This kind of invasion into the lives of innocent people cannot be justified. Stop IOC NOW!!!
Donna Greene
I have personally seen the abuses done in NYS in relation to the way that the Mentally Ill are treated.
I've seen a court of law commit my son to a year of involuntary confinement in a state hospital by using lies. I even had
another hospital records proving that they were lies, but I wasn't allowed to use them in court. They also commited him due
to the medications: anti-depressants they were giving him, that were causing suicidal idealation and aggression. Of course
they blames his illiness but we now all know that since that time the FDA has passed warnings against anti-depressants for
young teenagers. How can you pass a law allowing Involuntary Outpatient Medication when we can't trust the Psychiatry or Mental
Health Hygiene Law in NYS. Mental Health can be managed with correct care, something that is not happening in NYS. They system
needs changing not more laws.
Robert M Schlenger
Nadine Stolle
Without the use or threat of force, fascism could
not exist. Machiavelli, Mussolini, Hitler knew this. All dictators, would-be dictators, and bullies know this
basic fact. And this is the case with psychiatry. Without the use and threat of force, institutional psychiatry
would die. Lots of psychiatrists would be out of a job. I wish that would happen! Psychiatry gets its authority
and power to force, torture, involuntarily commit, and treat individuals against their will from the state. In institutional
psychiatry in fascist states, forced treatment is the rule, not the exception. There is now irrefutable, documentary
evidence that it was the German psychiatrists, particularly prominent professors of psychiatry, and psychiatry department
heads, who were chiefly responsible for initiating and administering the infamous T4 program, which involved the mass murder
of over 200,000 mental patients and thousands of sick and disabled children and adults during the holocaust. The term
euthanasia and mercy death to describe this murderous program is a cruel euphemism.
Richa
Don't
even consider expanding Kendra's Law. On the contrary; it needs to be severely curtailed or ended. Forcefully drugging people
goes totally against what America stands for, or is supposed to stand for - plus it is ultimately dangerous for others as
well. Instead, assure that people facing any mental crisis have the physical, social, mental, emotional, and other support
that they need.
If you have not already, please read Peter Breggin's book, Medication Madness.
Thank you.
Sherri Zimmerman
I am a survivor of the barbaric mental health care system in Florida and say NO to Kendra's
Law and Yes to alternatives in the mental health systems within the state of New York.
Sherri Zimmerman/author of Success
After Insanity
Colleen
Sondrini-Cooper
Dear Assemblyman Ortiz,
Kendra's Law violates human
rights for people living with a mental health condition. Please Sir vote No.
Yvonne Kravitz
Please do NOT drug
people without their consent. Kenda's Law was bad enough, the proposed new law would be worse.
Cynthia Fisher
This is just
another way for the drug company's to legally torture and abuse people who need community, compassion, and care! Say NO to
DRUGS! Do NOT extend the Kendra Law!
Dennis R Bridenstine
Forcing vulnerable people to do that in which they do not want to do is wrong!!! This should
already be known on all peoples hearts.
Stephen Z Melanson
Forced Treatment is Wrong
Andrea Schmook
I'm appalled that New York State is considering to make out patient commitment permanent
with Kendra's Law legislation. If Andrew Goldstein had received treatment he was voluntarily seeking, there wouldn't
be a Kendra's law today. Rather than using money to forcibly treat people, why not put that money into treatment and
peer support services that help people recovery their lives and recover their mental health through services. I do not
support this legislation and ask that you do not pass it.
Marilyn Gill
As the mother of a son who has been treated by the psychiatric system which then led
to the forensic psychiatric system, I am in complete agreement with WE THE PEOPLE and their agenda to have less mental health
intervention - the kind that we all know too well and which does not work, at best.
We need fewer laws, less Big-
Pharma/Business-biased media coverage and just less overall government interference into the lives of citizens minding their
own business in their homes.
How dare the government treat its people this way. Backed by those whose agenda
is avarice and greed with no regard for their fellow man; we have legislators willing to do the bidding of those who will
line their pockets. This MUST STOP! WE THE PEOPLE demand a better solution because WE THE PEOPLE pay our taxes
and therefore the salaries of those
George Badillo
There's been no difference in outcomes since this law was enacted. This treatment violates people
rights and has been used as a coercive tactic. People are put in I.O.C. because of lack of housing and are in need of case
management service. Even people who voluntary wants to take medication are asked to voluntary join the I.O.C. treatment. This
money could be put into better use in office.
Angela Smith
I feel it is an important aspect of our freedom and right to privacy to limit state
control or power over individual health, including mental health, choices. I think there should be no law imposing any
kind of treatment on an individual who does not wish for that treatment. There are so many problems and such lack of oversight
when it comes to pharmaceutical drug abuses and misdiagnosis in regards to mental health, that it is wholly irresponsible,
cruel, and violative of civil and human rights to pass any law requiring the treatment of individuals and citizens in this
manner.
Jerry
Costley
Loose commitment laws, without adequate, humane, community based
voluntary treatment and tightly regulated safeguards is a gross violation of human rights.
Bittin Foster Duggan
Please STOP Expansion
of Forced Outpatient Psychiatric Drugging.
Virginia Hetcher
I have seen first hand what New York State has already done to his Mentally Ill, and continues to do,
this law is terrible. After having a mother in a mental hospital in NYS I can tell you what real torture is and that
is forced drugs, when not even necessary, I have also worked on psychiatric floors. We need to stop forced drugs and
ECT treatments. This is a law that needs to be stopped. Thank you
Annie Robinson
The Icarus Project
PsychRights
Giovanna Pompele
Christopher Heimarck
No one
should be forcibly drugged. It is a violation of human rights.
Laura Borst
Involuntary outpatient
commitment is repressive and dehumanizing. There have been racial and class disparities in its implementation. In fact, a
well-known lawyer from the New York area named John Gresham has stated that blacks are likelier to be labeled as being "mentally
ill" and coerced into outpatient "treatment" programs. Forced psychiatric drugging often causes, if not exacerbates,
many health problems, such as diabetes. Psychiatric drugs often have disabling and debilitating effects, which are permanent
in many cases. The same is even more true for electroshock. I find it really bad that a doctor's testimony would not be required
under the new outpatient commitment law. Psychiatric diagnoses have often been made on subjective bases, and this accounts
for a lot of the racial,class,and gender disparity that has occured in psychiatric labeling. One psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz,
has stated that he believes "mental illness" to be a social construct that has often been used to repress political
dissidents and other non-conformists.
Carole Ford
Incarceration in a person's own community IS NOT THE ANSWER. An array of voluntary services
are.
ONE choice is NO choice in MH care.
Ron
Unger LCSW
It is now well proven that antipsychotic medications cause a
wide variety of health problems which then contribute to early mortality rates in those who take them. While some people
might reasonably choose to take them anyway, and limited forced used might be justified in extreme situations, the routine
forcing of people who are not an active threat to take medications against their will should be illegal, not an activity sponsored
by the state!
The state has no right to attempt to prevent hypothetical future harm to some people by forcing drugs
on others which are likely to cause harm, and to be experienced as overwhelmingly intrusive. The dollars spent on this
might better be spent on reinforcing the voluntary mental health system - keeping in mind that had the voluntary system have
been stronger, Kendra would likely not have died.
Sandra
Robison
I am not in favor of this law. You can not treat the
seriously mentally ill with less caring than your pets. Please vote against maintaining this horrible law.
Laureen Jackson
No
Permanence and no extension of Kendra's Law: Involuntary Outpatient Torture
Harold Mandel, MD
Forced psychiatric intervention
is always a form of torture which I will never support!
Kelly
Carbello
Many people suffered horrific abuses for years before rights
were "granted" to the mentally ill. Please consider the alternatives and restore the dignity that was lost with
the passing of Kendra's Law.
Joseph Cartin
Dana Carl
The "Recovery
Philosophy" enables people receiving services for mental health to make their own choices. This forced mental health
treatment is inhumane. Everyone has a right of choice in their life. By forcing treatment, you are pushing recovery back.
I totally disagree with that. The "Recovery Philosophy" has allowed me to take control of my own life and I still
take psychiatric drugs willingly. But I have the choice on what I do or not do. Noone should be forced to things against their
own will.
Genell Baun
Martin Johnson
Please end these draconian laws. They are violent,
discriminatory and deprive people of their basic rights as human beings. This is the free western democratic world. Restore
the basic dignity and rights to people in emotional crisis and those alleged to have 'mental illness'.
Denise Maratos
As a citizen of the U.S., I am ashamed and embarassed that all people do not have the same rights
despite mental diversity. Discrimination of all sorts (age, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic class, gender, educational level,
etc.) should NOT be and WILL NOT be tolerated!
If you FORCE drugs on mentally diverse people, it is like forcing drugs
on someone who is a woman or a man for her/his gender; it is like forcing drugs on a teenager; it is like forcing drugs on
someone who is bisexual or poor!!!
How many drugs are you going to take for your conditions Mr. Felix Ortiz? How many
diversities, including mental diversity, do you have?
We are living in the 21st century, not in the 16th. Either change
your new law or we will see you in court!
Sincerely, with gifted diversities,
Denise Maratos
Ed.M.,
Harvard University
Carolina Hatfield
We don't understand the brain yet and until we do we should not pretend to or subject anyone else
to unwanted experimentation. I believe our country does not and should not experiment on unwilling human beings.
Glenn Kirkindall
This is a
dangerous law that can easily be abused to silence activists that organizing for social change. There are no safeguards in
the law that provide oversight against abuse to individuals forced to take medication.
James A Larkin
Patricia Starnes
Forced psychiatric care is costing the state of New York millions of dollars it would otherwise not
have to pay. Sometimes when a person acts a little different than you, they should not be forced to take medications and ECT.
If you think forced medication for depression is the correct way to do things...where did the right to die peacefully ever
go? Maybe living as a prisoner in forced medication or an institution is not living. Maybe New York would not be one of the
most expensive places to live if everyone was not paying such high taxes to pay for all the forced medication and ECT treatments?
How did humanity ever survive before medication and ECT? Did they possibly take an herb and go on with life? Maybe over population
of the earth was not meant to be. Let people live and let live if they are not harming anyone else.
Tina Minkowitz, Esq.
Thank
you Assemblyman Ortiz for your willingness to speak the truth and oppose abuse and torture in the name of mental health, as
you did by proposing a bill against forced electroshock and for free and informed consent several years ago. Please
stand with We The People against outpatient torture. I would be happy to provide you with supporting arguments based
on international human rights law, see www.chrusp.org.
Patricia
Starnes
I made a comment earlier that was not complete. I have suffered
due to the NYS mental health system. At one point I was given ECT. It all stemmed from my heart racing in certain situations.
I was given "head meds" but it did not help. None helped and over the course of 11 years nothing worked. I was forced
into hospitalization by my choice or handcuffed. I was forced ECT and the doctor had to stop ECT...because my heart was racing
to fast. I was released if I promised to come back for more ECT. One night my heart was racing. I went to the ER and told
them I was having a panic attack. They said I did not look panicked. I told them I didn't feel panicked either but my mental
health doctors always assured me I was. They checked me out and found I was having an SVT. The doctor in the ER said whomever
told me I was having panic attacks all those years was an idiot. I wound up with two cardioablations and got off the "headmeds"
and can now function in life and in society!
On the meds I was unable to take care
of myself, work or do much of anything. The meds made me horribly depressed and the side effects other than depression were
unbearable. That 11 year episode of misdiagnoses cost New York State a lot of money. I hope tax payers all over NY vote this
law and whatever politician who votes for it down. Its costing them way too much. Its cheaper to live in other countries than
America and pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies are a major part of causing this. Please get rid of the forced
outpatient medication and treatment laws! Aren't you tired of paying for it? I am.
Sue Clark-Wittenberg
No Permanence and No Extension of Kendra's
Law: Involuntary Outpatient Torture. It is a violation of human rights.
People demand to be treated with respect.
Stop the torture of psychiatric patients in the USA.
Brenda
Lee Johnson
It is time for everyone to educate themselves about mental
illness and the needs of each consumer. A quick fix for one situation does not apply to all, this law not only takes away
the right to choose but also represents only one side of the story. As a mental health caseworker and consumer myself, this
is a slap in the face to all the work I and my collegues do each day to assist consumers in finding a healthy life in the
community and get the real help they need to be productive citizens in society. Andrew Goldstein is a perfect example of the
ignorance of an old way of thinking and the lack of care due to be ignored by those who could have helped him and saved two
lives.
Charlene Reeves
Laura Maskell
Sheila C. Curren, Ph.D., LCSW
There is ample evidence of the negative effects of pervasive, reflexive psychotropic
treatment; also ample evidence of inhuman treatment that results from forced hospitalization. Let's turn our energies
and resources to support human, effective, holistic treatments which include psychotherapy/psychoanalysis, activity, art,
music, writing, real work and real support. One such model is "388 Gifric" in Quebec. Models such as this
have demonstrable, proven results in restoring people to functioning: working (and paying taxes), full independence in self
support, even marrying and raising healthy families. People can be assisted in returning to happy, productive and giving
lives. Let's put our energies in these directions, not toward oppression.
Jodi Marchese
This is outrageous and must be stopped, what are
the governments next move to take moe ofourCivil Rights and Civil Liberties away?
Maria Mangicaro
The choice
of Law Makers to side with the dominate force of Psychiatry in State operated medical facilities is unconstitutional.
The use of psychiatric medications can be harmful to the individual who takes them, as well
as lead to the harm of others. Case example is that of Ryan Ehlis, who committed a murder and the drug company was admittedly
responsible for his criminal actions.
Psychiatric Drugs are not the only form
of treating symptoms of mental illness.
There are many underlying medical conditions
that can cause mania/psychosis that are being overlooked, despite the evidence.
Before
you support this law, investigate for yourself at this link
http://www.investigatingmentalillness.blogspot.com/
Psychiatric Labels are arbitrary and misleading.
The
psychiatric labeling process used by the State to support psychiatric drug use creates a class of people deprived of equal
protection and is unconstitutional.
The underlying conditions that are the root
cause of mania/psychosis must be considered before an individual is labeled with manic-depression or schizophrenia and coerced
into taking medications.
Judy Sugarman
We already have cost effective, humane alternatives. It is past the time to utilize
them! Kendra's Law doesn't work.
Ronald
Arjune
suppressing paranoid beliefs is wrong
Barbara Katz Rothman
Naomi Smith
Please do not extend kendras law.closer investigation show psych drugs to cause anger,aggresion,suicidal
thoughts, suicide,murder etc.,.sudden withdral cause the same problems.medication for mental illness is not a science,not
even close it is about sales.
Dr'give this stuff to infants prozac etc.
Erick Fabris
Adam Howell
Please repeal or let sunset "Kendra's Law" as one of the most oppressive pieces of legislation
we've seen to date. Involuntary outpatient treatment through forced drugging is fascist, unethical, and harmful in its nature.
Mark Eccles
Mental illness is not a physical disease. There is no lab test that can detect mental illness positively or negatively.
Nor can a lab test detect an individuals choice to do evil instead of good.
Psychiatry's efforts to FORCE people to be
"good" instead of "bad", can not , and does not work reliably. "better that ten guilty persons escape
than that one innocent suffer"Blackstone ratio.
How many innocent mentally ill people have to suffer for the
actions of Andrew Goldstein?
Stephen Arthur Maxwell
I believe that the language of "Kendra's Law" was deliberately written in
a confusing and preposterous manner in order to facilitate forced outpatient drugging(i.e. Involuntary Outpatient Torture),
the practice of which in turn is facilitative to the lining of the pocketbook$ of corporate pharmaceutical PHAT CAT$ with
billion$ and billion$ and billion$ of dollar$(more $munny$) (?could part of their motive be to compen$ate for the deva$tating
effect$ of Obummernomic$ a.k.a. "Obamanomic$", and by highly criminal mean$? I believe that the mental
hell-th industry is guilty, as charged with MASS MURDER), and that is the way it is, in that that that is that way is the
way that that is, that is, that is the way that that is that way.\ /Steve......^Steve's "law"^(o:
Paul Becker
Kenneth
Lynn
Punishing those already stigmatized with psychiatric labels by mandated
their use of dangerous, ineffective drugs with horrendous side effects (that can increase violence and worsen personal judgment)
is not a solution. And in fact causes new problems. Please do not extend Kendra's Law.
Marion Hubbard
It is time to honor the humanity of our fellow
human beings.
Claire Longpré
I strongly oppose to the 'Kendra's Law'.
I am from Québec, Canada. We now have the RRASMQ
Regroup of alternative ressources in mental Health on a provincial level.
I wish that New York and USAs invest
in looking into way more softer approaches than to impose unilateral drugging of people who otherwise, if more human ressources
and approaches would be taken into serious consideration.
Claire Longpré, Québec, Canada
Aubrey Ellen Shomo
This bill
is one of the most staggering violations of the civil rights of people who experience mental illness I have seen in a while.
It is worse than the original Kendra's law and many initiatives based on it. Whatever you call the experience of madness,
taking more rights than those taken from criminals is not the appropriate response. It's a crime against humanity -
and nothing less.
The compassionate, reasonable response consists of making the tools available for people to find their
own way out, not ensuring they'll never go near those tools for fear of force.
The answer is alternatives, not force.
Please end, not permanentize, Kendra's law.
Juli Lawrence
Persons with psychiatric diagnoses are one of the last groups of people
who live with discrimination every day. We've gone into countries to allegedly liberate their people, we're raising our national
debt to provide "health care" to every citizen, but it is still politically and morally correct to treat anyone
with mental illness as less than. Less than human.
It's time to do the right thing and call for No Permanence and
No Extension of Kendra's Law: Involuntary Outpatient Torture.
Becca
Yoder
Nothing good will come of forcing people to take psychiatric drugs.
It will not make the public safer. It will only further marginalize a group of people who are already considered "untouchable"
by mainstream society.
Ronda R. Ames
It's bad enough that there is involuntary commitment period but involuntary outpatient commitment
is even worse. Traditional treatment would go further if the consumer was treatment with dignity and respect and the
treatment plan is person centered. The reason there is involuntary patient commitment is to force treament plans that
just plain don't work!!!!
Malaina Poore
Helen Krisilas
Let me know
if any of them want to experience the law themselves. If they haven't experienced for themselves they don't know what they
are talking about and thus they can't vote on extending it. Please unless you have experienced the abuses yourself don't extended.
It does more harm then good to individuals and families.
Paula
Christine Hulbert
Forced outpatient treatment must stop. A person with
a mental illness must ALWAYS be part of the decisions about their treatment or lack of treatment.
Heather G Staton
We the People do have a right to speak,
be heard, not be afraid, and refuse to be mistreated by the force of involuntary outpatient laws such as the "Kendra's
Law". I call for NO PERMANENCE and NO EXTENSION of Kendra's Law of Involuntary Outpatient Torture. You can
slice it and dice it under all kinds of names, laws, disclosures, whatever, but you cannot get away from the simple fact that
what you as a representative of New York are proposing is wrong. Wrong is wrong and Right is right. Stop mixing
signals and language to benefit some small portion of the population. Whoever it is benefiting needs to ask themselves
why does torturing other people cause me to rise in power, become richer or keep my reputation strong? In this case,
scenerio it is not the stronger survives and the weaker dies. Instead it is the crueler man survives by killing innocent
people or torturing them until they do eventually die. That's murder through power and prestige and lawmaking.
Or at le!
ast a road to murder others. Meanwhile, who is it working for- who
is benefiting? Whoever is benefiting really needs to look at what is it that is making them stronger? Politic
power and influence that allows you to overlook other peoples human rights so that you remain on top? That is not stronger;
that is just leveraging your power and desire to stay in power over others. Is your name and reputation and power as
important as the human rights or even the very lives of other people? Again, we
are down to the fight against the survival of your livelihood or the survival of other peoples LIVES. Which is it going
to be your career/reputation/power or other peoples actual LIFE?
Your life
will not be over if you chose to stand up to this critical issue. Your career and reputation may take a hit but that
is all. Your decision will cost the lives of others if you make the wrong decision. If you make the correct decision
you can save the lives of others and be a hero. Or your choice to save your career and take part in creating policies set
forth to eventually cause people to die much much earlier than their time is on your hands. How are you going to wash your
hands of the eventual deaths of innocent peoples' snuffed out lives?
Easy...Say no
to Kendra's Law and Say YES to alternatives.
Heather G Staton
Cindi Katz
Forced treatment violates people's dignity and human rights.
Marjorie Sharp
It is most important to stop forced drugging
by mental health caregivers, they are not only dangerous, they are like a lobodenmey, in medication form, please stop this
forced practice!
Thomas Eugene Hughes
This is the testimony of one person who has been free of unwanted psychiatric influence
for over a decade.
Let it be known that I have firsthand experienced the intensely
uncomfortable "rebound effect" of the sudden cessation of unnecessary and unwanted antipsychotic drugs as an intensification
of their core effect. They have no specific "antipsychotic effect". Such chemicals affect all mammals similarly.
The drugs were preventing me from being a self sustaining contributor to my community
sooner than I have. Any relief from either discomfort was a constant desire even as I used the 10% less per week system to
remove myself from their torturous grasp.
Forced and coercive psychiatric
drugging illuminates individuals in the criminal justice system, physicians, and pharmaceutical companies in the same light
as addiction to illicit drugs places drug dealers and cartel distribution participants. Both gain wealth in a
vain attempt to force artificial happiness upon individuals who are capable of releasing items of value into the exchange.
Once fleeced; their bondage is then used to influence others into the exchange. Please do not
place your state's government into the unsustainable status of both promoting and opposing error.
It is my understanding that mentally ill persons are just as likely to be the victim of a violent crime as any other member
of society. Please do not tilt this scale with an open invitation to state sponsored drug torture on demand.
Forced psychiatric drugging did me harm and nothing else. I am still recovering from the heavy
burden of resentment it dumped into my life.
Marie
Parcell
Catherine Simon
If I had been living under the provisions of the law you endorse, I would still be a useless dysfunctional mental
patient. The basis for the law itself is flawed--statistics plainly show that those who are diagnosed with mental illness
are much, much more likely to be VICTIMS of violence than to ever cause it. Please do not pass a law which takes away basic
civil rights from people based on subjective views of their "sanity".
Mary Maddock
Forced 'treatment' is a crime against humanity.
Roy Bradley Fountain
As a mental health professional, I have seen this all to well. Giving "SHOCK" Therapy or the nice
name "ECT" Treatment without really providing in depth information to patient and family and given option as getting
a second opinion from another Doctor in mental health field. Also made aware of long term side effects. Should have a waiting
period to give patient time to think and talk to family and other patients that have had this treatment. You see I know all
this as I was a patient myself and I wished I had these options given to me!!!
Julie Leonovs
People with mental health issues do not need drugs
or ECT - but help, support and understanding.
Stephen Pocklington
First, do no harm. Please, say no to Kendra's law. Say no
to pharmaceutical restraints. Say no to involuntary commitment.
Andrew G Katsetos
Jonathan Dosick
Donna CeCartel
I do not agree
with any forced treatment
Gianna Kali
Force "treatment" is a misleading and repulsive oxymoron. For treatment to be healing and
therapeutic it, by definition, cannot be forced.
Marci
Stern
Don Emmal
Please dont expand Kendras' law.More forced treatments will only backfire and result in less people receiving what
they need- mainly housing and support structures with ccompassion at their core. Thanks, Don Emmal
Lester Cook
You are kidding me right? They want to take away
people's right to due process
Julien Arbor, PsyD
Forced "treatment" is traumatizing, inhumane, and torturous. If we are to
live in a civil society that honors the human rights of all citizens, then we must develop safer and more effective alternative
treatments and socioeconomic solutions that promote healing and the dignity of every human being.
Yves Lehmann
Christine Barclay
No More drugging
Leticia Villarreal
Sosa
I do not support involuntary outpatient treatment or medication.
This law violates human rights. I ask that you vote no.
Jim
Gaskins
I'm absolutely behind you guys on this. This outrage must be brought
to an end. I'm not one who has suffered at the hands of this fraudulent industry, but I've watched many others and believe
it is a direct violation of the most basic human rights. Stop these guys now...
Mary O'Hagan
Heidi Reyes
Say NO to Kendra's Law and YES to Alternatives. There are alternatives to drugging that work.
These alternatives need funding. Please fund the alternative treatments to drugging.
Shaista Patel
I sign this as an ally and say no to Kendra's Law
and to the white supremacist dehumanizing of bodies which happens every single day from the streets, to soup kitchens, to
'mental asylums' and several others places that are part of our everyday lives.
Kevin Mayheew
Treating symptoms is like spraying air freshener
instead of flushing the toilet which neglects the underlying cause.
Bob Imhoff
For the complete picture on this issue visit
http://www.cchrint.org/
Ray Peck
Forced government drugging of citizens is a 1984 horror and should not be tolerated or supported.
Robert Belcastro
This is completely a violation of First Amendment and other Constitutional rights (too much to go into here) to force
a person to ingest the equivalent of a low level poison. It is akin to murder to do this to anyone, and you are an accomplice
to any murder they commit if you don't try to stop this legislation. These are NOT light drugs. Their effects
are devastating to the person taking them.
A person has a right to refuse to take them. Read the warning labels
that are on the containers!
No one has the right to force another person to take such mind altering drugs.
Danny Amin
Jane
Miller
I suppose in a country that has suspended the rights of habeas
corpus, one could hardly expect to see a great deal of objection to a mental health system which is unarguably a disposal
system for the unwanted in families (the old, the young, the dependent). Not only is it a disposal system, it is one without
law and does not even consider the necessity of substantiating family claims, operating on a system of secret testimony. Nor
is there any body to truly assess the information were the families involved likely to give it. Psychiatry is a very soft
science with little in the way of a track record. When was the last time psychiatrists identified a serial killer in advance?
And how many instances are there of rehabilitated abusers set free to abuse again? There will be much to pay for the heartless
drugging of the young and old and those in between who are viewed as annoyances. The profit in this system is with the mental
health workers and the drug companies. Its!
activities constitute crime. Psychiatry rests on false science and
is harming many; its activities should be curtailed, rather than expanded. Therefore, I am emailing this objection against
your proposed expansion of generalized drugging of the populace. I ask you to think about this crime in the very act of its
performance and to say no to it.
David Potter
Psych drugs cause brain damage, frequently. Forced drugging, whether in an psych
prison, or in the home, is torture.
Sylvia Dodd
Please do not allow "Kendra's law" to have an impact on the lives of so many
who have a hard enough time as it is. Not everyone is the same when it comes to how they would react in any given situation.
There is a dire need for the basic needs of individuals to be met. We should treat others the way we want to be treated. I
am not saying that what Andrew Goldstein did was an appropriate response, but using Andrew Goldstein as an example for all
that are diagnosed as mentally ill does not solve the problem either. WHAT HAPPENED TO kENDRA WAS TRAGIC. I understand the
pain that her family and friends must have suffered. But I am asking you to not punish a bunch of other people for what only
one man did. I hope you and others will find it in your hearts to forgive the offender, and allow him to receive the treatment
he was used to receiving. That does not mean he is getting away with it. He just needed the right type of help. I used to
live in NYC, and it was sometimes hard to ge!t the help I needed. The homeless shelters need to either improve, expand, or
close down. People need their own private space. I could go on, but I am sure that my e-mail is not the only one you will
be looking at. God bless you, and I hope to hear from you soon.
Delphine
Brody
Let's face the facts, forced treatment has failed. Increased
access to an array of voluntary community services and supports that meets people's needs has been shown to yield better outcomes
with enormous cost savings.
Kendra's Law, long opposed by NY consumers/survivors as an approach that inflicts
trauma and destroys hope, shown by research to offer no better outcomes than similar services provided on a voluntary basis
(Steadman et al, 2001), and exposed as racially disproportionate in its implementation (NYLPI, 2005), should be allowed to
sunset permanently. It should not be extended one more time, and it absolutely should not be made permanent.
Furthermore, the proposed new provisions represent a major new assault on civil rights, doubling the length court orders,
eliminating due process hearings and creating new criteria for inpatient commitment.
Please listen to the people,
read the research, and do the math. Expanding forced treatment is not the answer; providing an array of voluntary services
and supports in the community is what is needed. Kendra's Law should be laid to rest.
William C. Sullivan
Please, Involuntary measures in the psychiatric
world have proven to be ineffective. Only the collaborative arrangements between provider and recipient of services
is helpful.
Jayne Alcock
Say no to torture! This proposal will result in terrible abuse and trauma to vulnerable
people. Instead provide decent holistic care based on the goal of recovery.
Kristin Ulland
This is a barbaric idea. No one will benefit from
enforced mental health care treatment. It shows an unbelievable amount of ignorance that this bill got any traction. Talk
to survivors of the mental health care industry!
Marsha
Bancroft
Please find alternative ways to work with people with serious
mental illness.
Deborah L. Davies
Mental Health often is nothing more than educated guess and a tool of manipulation. If a person is
not a danger to himself or others, mandated treatment is never going to be a solution unless it involves control of another
human being. That is alot of control to offer an educated opinion or position of manipulation. Put yourself in the position
of being on the receiving end before you make a law to control another human being. When treatment is sought, the waiting
lists are often too long because there are clients other people want to control and manipulate for their advantage, not out
of necessity.
Dan Renner
In the early days, the first "anti-depressants" were marketed as a "lobotomy in a pill" with
the purpose of making one brain-dead and of no use to the community.
On top of that, put the fact that side-effects of
so-called "anti-depressants" include violence and suicide.
We already have a country seething with stupid people
because of the level that our education system has stooped to, with an extension of Kendra's Law, there will only come violence
of an unprecedented level, not a rebuilding of America, which is obviously so dreadfully needed at this time.
Please
do not allow this bill to pass.
Eileen McGinn
Other than those with vested interests in continuing the present system of coercion,
discrimination, stigma and reliance on drugs to deal with what are clearly societal and economic issues for most of those
diagnosed with a "mental illness", no objective observers reviewing the biased studies, as well as the testimony
of those who are subject to these inhumane laws and some of those who are required to enforce them, would agree that it is
necessary to strip people of their basic human rights and constitutional protections in the name of medical care. Psychiatry
has little scientific evidence to support the theories and practices it espouses. The practice of psychiatry has outpaced
the evidence in everyday clinical care, as has been well documented in many scientific papers and from the reports of users
and survivors. Using legal means to force people to be in the "mental health" system, a system with a record
of its participants having a 25 year shorter life spa!
n, much of it lived with multiple
drug-induced medical illnesses and disabilities, is not compatible with democracy, freedom, human rights or ethical medical
treatment.
Marths
Brock
I do not live in NY, but I do live in NC where the consultant
making the suggestions for change lives and works at Duke. His research deserves a second look from unbiased sources,
and not just governmental authorities who may be without proper training to evaluate his research results.
Thomas Olin
Vote No to Kendra's
Law and Yes to Human Rights!
Kent
Reedy
The proposed extension of involuntary psychiatric "treatment"
is a back door way to further diminish the civil rights guarantees of the U.S. constitution - such as the right to due process.
What public support it has comes mainly from people who think they could never be personally subject to this kind of denial
of civil rights, so they don't care how wrong or how technically unconstitutional it may be. It as long as it only targets
some other people who the majority regard as unimaginably different from themselves, they see no threat from this denial of
basic rights. It may be a precurser to fewer civil rights for everyone, but many are unable to see that; it may help
ease the way for a slide towards a more totalitarian form of government, but many are too self-satisfied to even entertain
the thought that that may be possible. Their willingness to accept just a few people being excluded from the protections
of the Bill of Rights, and then later just a few more!
, and so on, may someday cause
those protections to no longer exist for anyone.
S.
Robin Weiss
IOC does not woek and would never even be considered if there
were enough effective services available in the community. This legislation is a waste of time as it tries to put a bandaid
on a a greater systemic problem.
Anita Cameron
I am urging you stop involuntary and forced treatment of people with mental health
conditions. I FULLY support the work of We The People! I'm in Washington, DC, but am with you in spirit!
Anita Cameron
Cheryl Wulf
Defies logic:
give mind-altering drugs to make a person behave more normally! Show me the gauge by which to measure the need for,
or the benefit of, these permanently disabling drugs.
Marie
Anderson
Look at the ACTUAL results of forced drug treatment!
Taumatizing and drugging down symptoms statistically has a catastrophic effect on too many
individuals. This type of treatment, far from preventing crime is creating more danger to society.
Consider as well the unconstitutional act of "preventive treatment". These people end
up feeling raped and violated beyond words combined with the dangerous side effects of the drugs themselves.
Roseann Schmidt
I am against all involuntary treatment. Each person has a right to live. IOC is certainly not a
means to recovery. Involuntary committment is a form of terrorism to someone who really needs love,mercy, understanding, and
paying attention to trully help give what is wanted not forced against one's will. The extension of Kendra's Law will
only promote IOC to many other unnecessary situations. Committment doesn't rehabilitate so what is the true purpose?
It is another form of victimazation.
Frank Cuny
New York is a great state as is California. Our organization ask you NOT pass the law.
California Citizens for Health Freedom
Cary Wagner
Antipsychotic/antidepressent medications should go hand in hand with one to one
therapy by a credentialed PHD and regular medication checks with the issuer of the medication. True assistance is not in a
bottle of pills without adjunctive therapy. Too many recieve "pills" without therapy.
Moneer Zarou
It's a sad thing when our elected officials
ignore solid statistics to pander to mass hysteria.
People with mental issues
are still people and not cattle to be herded and kept in pens and medicated because current services are inadequate and substandard.
Please do not extend this antiquated and useless law that does no one any good.
Rather spend tax payer monies on supportive care, peer support and real recovery.
Ben
Justiss
Alan Eames
I maintain that too many people have been victimized by experimentation, drugging, and
electro-convulsive "therapy". They continue to state national statistics that people who have been treated as "mentally
ill" die an average of 25 to 30 years younger than their contemporaries. Why? Because of the treatment, not because of
their alleged mental illness.
I view the "mental illness industry" as cruel,
costly, powerful, and profitable. As a citizen of the United States I maintain that the human rights of ALL people must be
protected and promoted. When the needs of people are met, force is not necessary. Forced drugging and unwanted "treatment"
is torture.
Say no to Kendra's law; say yes to alternatives.
Elizabeth R
Another person wrote what I have also posted
below (they just said it so perfectly):
End Kendra's Law now. People need choice
in recovery, not force and coercion. Psychiatry is being used as a tool for social control and oppression. Tax dollars are
being spent to violate human rights. Use those dollars to provide alternatives, choices and much needed social resources.
If those resources had been in place, Kendra Webdale would probably be alive today. Andrew Goldstein ASKED for psychiatric
treatment, but was turned away.
Stop violating human rights, and stop letting
interest groups capitalize on tragedies that could have been PREVENTED by the choice to access treatment. Andrew Goldstein
wasn't given that choice. Keep marginalizing people, and they get desperate. Remove freedom, and you remove any chance of
recovery.
Michael Haan
What about "Mary's
Law"? What about the fact that science has discovered recovery does not occur by force? What about the Constitutional
Right to choice which furthers the recovery process as supported by tne scientific evidence? And what about Mary Watson
who fought not to die 25 years early as a result of the psych drugs forced on people? What about the 25 years?
What about the human rights that were violated in King County when they annulled her marriage and didn't let her talk to friends
anymore in the name of these dangerous drugs? See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFf0gb_f93I
Roy Nikolaisen
I will sign this to say NO to Kendra's Law and
YES to common sense. NO to involuntary and forced treatment. NO to electro-convulsive treatment and all other forms of torture.
And YES to good physical examinations and good nutrition and a calm, secure environment.
Marlene Dembin
I
don't believe that psychiatric medicine should be forced upon anyone. It should be strictly voluntary. Also, I am opposed
to Kendra's Law, and there should definitely be more alternatives.
John Clayton Cross II
Tehseen Noorani
John Egan
It's time to put
peoples lives and well being ahead of corporate profits.
We the people, need to take more responsibility to help those
who can not help themselves, or to help those who may have suffered a temporary setback, to get back on their feet again.
Kendra"s Law would only inhibit progress in peoples treatment.
L Wiles
This law should not be extended. Everyone should
have a choice in the care they get or don't want.
Coalition
Against Psychiatric Assault
Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault,
& PsychOUT Cnference Organizing Committee
We strongly oppose
involuntary outpatient committal (involuntary outpatient torture) that many of us psychiatric survivors and friends have been
subjected to in Canada and the United States.
Forced treatment of any kind, including
forced drugging,is psychiatric assault - a psychiatric crime sanctioned by the state, a serious violation of people's human
and civil rights. "Kendra's Law" must be abolished now!
- Executive Committee,Coalition
Against Psychiatric Assault(CAPA), and
PsychOUT Conference Organizing Committee
Toronto
Joe Woodward
Mental Illness is not a crime and should not be treated as a crime, treating mental
illness should be recovery based, equal access to treatment and person centered. This approach has worked time and time again
for individuals that the m.h. system rejected. Treatment that offers choice, respect, integrity, alternatives and accessibility
is what is needed.
Sonia del Mundo
I
oppose Involuntary Outpatient Torture.
Gia Stark
Mel Starkman
The extension
of Kendra's Law is a travesty of justice and precludes due process to victims who are psychiatrized and victimized by civil
rights injustice. It does nothing to protect innocent bystanders from wrongs usually done in a desperate plea for help in
a system rotten to the core.
Michael Sparti
As a Certified Peer Specialist, Non-practising alcoholic(16&1/2yrs)AND retired Physician
I have a Unique perspective.
Do not allow this egregious legisation to go further!
Kindly call/ e-mail for expanded
views and Values,
spartimed@hotmail.com, 678-895-4388
Thank You,
Michael Sparti,BS,D.O.,CPS,CAC(pending supervised
hrs)
Miguel Reyes
Stan Cavers
STOP "Kendra's Law" - Removal of human rights,
forced medication, and just more fear mongering.
This law as with others similar to it are gaining traction throughout
America. They are not based in the sound principles of our constitution, or in our innate responsibility for providing civil
liberties, humane treatment, & fostering human rights throughout the world. Those people and organizations supporting
these laws are mislead and ignorant to realities of our present day mental health system and it's inherent short comings.
I suggest you read more about those behind "Kendra's Law" and other laws similar to this one.
http://bipolar-stanscroniclesandnarritive.blogspot.com/2010/02/fuller-torrey-treatment-advocacy-center.html
The " Fuller Torrey" Treatment Advocacy Center lobbying to limit civil rights and force drug large segments of
our population
http://bipolar-stanscroniclesandnarritive.blogspot.com/2010/02/sunday-seattle-times-front-page.html
Sunday Seattle Times Front Page - government fear mongering over the state of insanity
I ask you make the right vote
as a representative of all the people and Say NO to "Kendra's Law"
Thank you,
Stan
Charles F. McCarthy
Involuntary
medication is barbaric. Even in a locked secure hospital setting patients have their glasses broken, their eyes blackened,
and their bodies bruised and battered. Any therapeutic relationship with the patient is lost. How much more the violation
when it occurs in your own home or community and administered by persons with even less experience than in-patient psychiatric
hospital staff. Will law enforcement officers be involved? Who will be holding the patient and pulling his or
her pants down to administer the drug? Who will be monitoring the patient following the administration of the drug(s)?
Many of these patients live alone. The administration of involuntary medication in the community will have to be done in an
in-patient setting!!!!!!!
Maie Liiv
became part of the psychiatric system when a thyroid problem was not diagnosed and pharmaceuticals
were prescribed. It was hell.
Amber Guerrero
Just
say NO to Kendra's Law and YES to CHOICE!
Daniel Hazen
Deborahy Evans
Please,
no, involuntary outpatient torture.
Sharon E. Hoffman
I am an advocate who has worked with an individual, at their request, who is under court ordered
treatment.
The current process, in my experience, is a total waste of taxpayers dollars.
It does not promote recovery
in the individual nor inclusion of the family and community supports, two vital components of recovery. Those who the
person trusts are not "allowed" to assist the "assigned" team.
This individual's person centered
plan developed while in the hospital was totally dropped upon discharge into the community. Other discharge plans were wholley
inadequate and ill conceived did not include the imput of the person.
The "team" and forced medication was
supposed to be the solution for success in living in the community.
Now, a year later, how would you respond if police
came looking for you with drawn guns in full view?
It seems the team's only answer is to drug the person into being a
zombie, producing yet another wasted life which has to be supported long term with our tax dollars.
It can and
should be different.
Force is not the answer.
This law is not designed to provide for the individual, it is designed
merely to appease the "public" - so that it can be said - there are safeguards in place to protect society.
I live each day with grave concern that the outcome for this individual will be yet another fatal tragedy.
Please do
not continue this farce - Do not expand or allow this law to gain permanence. It serves no valued purpose.
Instead,
have the political will to do what is right.
Sincerely yours,
Sharon E. Hoffman
Gorett Reis
Annmarie Hjortsberg
Sweden
is horrifying in the present....people die and are beeing treated very bad
Maxine Hayden
I would suggest that Assemblyman Ortiz and the
NYS Mental Health Committee be exposed to "Sensitivity Training" even in front of this committee and their staff
to view and experience for themselves the devistating and tramatic effects upon citizens of New York State.
Representatives
of the people of New York State need to fully understand the torture masquerading as "Treatment", for the unjust
enrichment of the Pharmceutical Industry and their Non-Profit Front Groups who push this type of legislation.
The work
by U.S. Senator Charles Grassley should also be presented to the NYS "Mental Health Committee". on the exposure
of the political lobbyists that push this type of "Torture", upon the American Public.
Barbara Albert
I have been "forced to take",also known
as, "guinea pigged", practically to death. Much of this has resulted with MANY other medical complications, some
of which are permanent. Never mind the increase of frustration with a so called group of "health care" people, who
in my opinion, just perpetuate the abuse, and continue to sociopathically re-stigmatize.
Particularly while inpatient.Due
to the fact that here in CT, all the employee needs is a high school diploma, sometimes only a GED, which DOES NOT equal the
education of a high school diploma.Which does not equal a college diploma. Which will never, in my opinion, equal life experience.
I have also been in outpatient "therapy", where the lack of knowledge further perpetuates.
So much for "first
do no harm".
OR DID YOU FORGET???? Did you even know?
The Mental "Health" system, as well as many
others are as scared of the unknown,as they are of the possibility of having medical illness(es)like what we have.
GROW
A SET.
Anyone is illegible.
I have also been 'stuck' in daily 'outpatient'.More often than not ,workers, in my opinion,
are the most often unqualified to work there.
I have never been violent to another person, and its not going to happen
today either.
Several times I have been referred to as "non-compliant".
Ever hear of a Federal Document
called The Americans With Disabilities Act, finally passed in 1990?
Ever READ, some of it? Any of it?
I am a Human
Being that deserves to have a choice, and a chance, JUST LIKE ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING.
Like I wrote before,grow a set.
This is 2010.
Respectfully,
Barbara Albert, Human Rights Advocate
Alan Weinerman
Not only is "forced treatment"
barbaric, but psychitric drugs cause massive brain damage even for the "willing"...the paharmaceutical companies
know this and deliberately hide the information
Catherine E.
S. Horn
This law is counterproductive to the needs of
mental health consumers. Equitable and compassionate services are needed for the mental health community. As well, consumers
need a voice in how a medication affects their function and their lives. Too many consumers are force fed dangerous medications
that do not help them. This gentleman acted in desperation. This case is atypical of most consumers who are by their nature
non-violent. Even NAMI will attest that evidence based practices where consumers have a voice and participation in their treatment
go farther and are proven to be less of a "libiability" to society, if we see the perspective of those without mental
illness. Consumers are human beings; try to remember that when formulating, considering, structuring and entacting
laws.
Thank you,
Catherine ES Horn
Member of Icarus Project
Constance Lesold
This law has had terrible consequences for many people. To continue it would be
simple minded and show a lack of respect for scientific methods and work done on this matter.
Mike Bachhuber
Studies show that people with Mental Illness are
less dangerous than others living in similar neighborhoods. When do our rights as Americans get honored?
Glenn Simpson
I have suffered under the law.
I was ready to work and instead was forced to attend day treatment and lost income, barely able to survive. I got injections
which led to diabetes. The law is terrible!
William Lennox
Passing this law would be a crime against humanity and dignity for indivduals with mental illness,
there are other options. Currently how would you "force" someone to be treated inthe community? Consumers of mental
illness have
Charles Dickens
I am in complete agreement no permanence and no extension of kendra's law
Peter Ashenden
I am writing to you to call for No Permanence
and No Extension of Kendra's Law: Involuntary Outpatient Torture. It has been demonstrated that folks do well with choice
and an enhanced package of voluntary mental health services. This law must be stopped and allow those that want services the
choices that they deserve.
Laurie Galloway
W. Marc Ducker, Esq. CPRP
This
"new" involuntary outpatient commitment law is a violation of human rights law and civil rights law. It penalizes
persons for having a medical illness and labels them, sub silencio, as a danger to the community without the need for a full
commitment hearing or trial. It then permits them coercively to live in the community under punitive conditions (forced medical
treatment)when there are clinically proven constitutionally-mandated less restrictive alternatives (such as non-invasive
Solteria Project-style interventions and peer-run Rose-House style respite housing). This is a shameful travesty!
Dean Hogarth
I feel it is
cruel and unusual punishment. Most mentally ill, compliant or not, are not as dangerous as some of our so-called "normal"
neighbors. Just look at the newspaper.
Dianne Moore
CAPA Executive
Forced drugging, forced electroshock,forced hospitalization,restraints,
isolation...no human being should be subjected to that. What kind of a society... a world are we when we allow this State
structured torture to become the standard practice for corralling the most vulnerable of people and targeting them for oppression
and mental and physical torment?
In the 1930's, when Hitler began to cleanse the Aryan Community of "mental defectives"...he
quickly went on to the Roma, the homosexuals, the Jews...
If we don't speak up now, when vulnerable members of our community
are being targeted for this type of State-sanctioned and State sponsored abuse, how long before they come for the rest of
us?
And who will be free to speak for you?
Lydia Richard
The State of Maine has recently enacted a law based on Kendra's Law that
is very scary for me as a consumer of mental health services. I have seen too many people try to get help and be turned away
and then end up in the news. Something must be done to force agencies that are using tax payer money to provide the services
that we need.
No other group of people are forced by the courts in order to get the treatment they require.
Thank
you.
Anne Dox
This law penalizes and
criminalizes innocent people. It was born from sensational media hype that stigmatizes people who seek mental health
services as violent. It encourages the general public to fear people who have been labeled as
"mentally ill". The criteria of this law allowing forced treatment also disallows the normal movement between
various services as people gain their recovery -- offering fear rather than support. The law causes animosity among
the people who are prioritized for services because of being AOT'd and those that must continue to wait.
No law
should be unjust and no law should cause harm.
Rosemary Straney You
can not recover from mental illness if you are continuously traumatized. Being forced into something against your will
is traumatizing. The "treatment" is likely to exacerbate symptoms rather than successfully resolve them.
Barbara McCarty
I had my own verifiable horrible experience with the
system that was similar to IOC.
I OPPOSE THE EXTENSION OR PERMANENCE OF KENDRA'S LAW
The current psychiatric system operates still as
a mostly unregulated horror of the worst human rights abuses present
on American soil . The doctors routinely ignore or intensively abuse the desperate
and unfortunate people that they are entrusted with sole
"
care " of . And they are robbing so very much taxpayer money
, and with endless impudence , in order to do this .
They routinely violate the most basic Constitutional
Rights of vulnerable adults and children , in rampantly effecting the ruined lives
, disfigurement , crippling , early deaths by side effects , or by suicides caused
by the drugs , or by the doctors and system .
Not to mention the crippling humiliation of enduring stigma , and
family / property / job and reputation loss.
In fact , even under current law(s) , there is almost no accountability ----
or positive outcomes for the patient.
EXTENSION OR PERMANENCE OF KENDRA'S LAW will almost certainly
SET A PRECEDENT for uncontrolled tyranny . For :
Very many of the psychiatrists ( and attorneys ) are totally dishonest
, unprincipaled , and the money involved with the drugs is a huge incentive for them .
They CANNOT be trusted to make 'only good ' drugging decisions for the patient . And
forced drugging , by its nature , can bend and break a person ; definitely prevent a person
from legally fighting them back .
Even one day under a
wrongfully prescribed psych drug ( such as Haldol ) can be completely
incapacitating . A 6 month order can be truly 6 MONTHS IN HELL
. Double that to one year , and you have DOUBLE THE (
undeserved , SENSEless ) HELL for an innocent person .
Abolish the doctors' hearings, or even testimony , and you have
given the Psych - Nazis a BLANK CHECK for silencing , incapacitating , detaining
and even KILLING off the unloved and unwanted ; the poor and
the alone ; the misunderstood , harmless " nuisance " and the legal
or moral " dissident " . ( All this , without even a paper trail
to trace or determine malfeasance by .)
Same goes to any
person FORCED to non - compliance with an order , due to real and acute physical
suffering caused by the drug(s).
They are merely
Non - Compliant --- NOT a " Danger ". Common sense is
: they are only a danger if they are , indeed , a danger .
But the language in the new law would open the
door for such as aggressive , unwarranted forcible manhunts ordered
by dishonest or unprincipaled doctors ( and so extremely potentially dangerous for
all involved , or surrounding ) . Even if the person were benign
/ deathly ill from drug's side effects / and indeed FORCED to
non-compliance , by his side effect being ignored by his negligent
doctor .
In fact , there is NO factual or medical
suppression of any individual , no evil manipulation of all legal , civil
rights , that cannot be brought about into action once KENDRA'S becomes
permanent ---and PRECEDENT . Property rights , family planning , freewill life plans
and destinies can ALL be seized and forcibly manipulated
once KENDRA'S becomes precedent . Because a person held involuntarily
under the wrong psych drugs , without recourse , is a person who
cannot live or function at all well .
Michael Sabourin
Involuntary outpatient care is not patient centered nor an effective modality
as it basically destroys individuals' life styles and sense of self.
Nor is it prudent to have a vulnerable class
of people with less rights than average citizens
Involuntary outpatient is just a lazy way of not providing
adequate services or help to affected individuals
Marian B.
Goldstein
Thomas Behrendt
Elizabeth Szlek
Please
do not allow this heinous law to be extended in New York State. Too many children and adults have become chronic mental patients
because of forced drugging. We need compassion and care, and indeed, love to prevail in dealing with persons who are experiencing
difficulties in living. We do not need to destroy their brains with these poisonous drugs.
Elizabeth Szlek,LMHC,NCC,MA
Director
The Door Counseling Center
Yorkville, NY
Dante Smith
What more can I say... PEOPLE cannot keep being allowed
to control other PEOPLE, physically, emotionally, socially, or otherwise, for financial gain!
Rebecca Christie
I am a former student of Psychology who
has witnessed the damage that forced treatment causes.
All psychiatric drugs
have the propensity to cause a condition called akathisia, which has been documented by Dr. Lucire, Dr. Breggin and Dr. Glenmullen,
amongst others, to be a potent predictor of violent behavior. Those who have survived this neurological assault often refer
to it as a form of torture.
In the US SSRIs carry a black box warning concerning
their ability to cause suicidal ideation. The makers of Effexor XR actually list "homicidal ideation" as a
side effect of their drug.
In Canada all SSRI antidepressants now carry
the following warning:
"There are clinical trial and post-marketing reports
with SSRIs and other
newer anti-depressants, in both pediatrics and adults, of severe
agitation type
adverse events coupled with self-harm or harm to others. The
agitation-type events include: akathisia, agitation, disinhibition, emotional
lability, hostility, aggression, depersonalization. In some cases, the events
occurred within several weeks of starting treatment." (see Paxil CR product monograph, on the Health Canada
drug database website available here: http://webprod.hc-sc.gc.ca/dpd-bdpp/info.do?lang=eng&code=72855 )
In light of the above I am opposed to this law. The public deserves protection
from ineffective, dangerous treatments, not from those who have been labeled mentally ill. Numerous effective, safe
alternatives exist which can be applied without coercion. It is past time these are made widely available.
Adam P
Ria
Ora
I have had the experience of having psychiatry's idea of help forced
upon me.
my experiences lead to me conclude that forced treatment...
* ...contributes to the oppression
and shame that a psychiatric survivor would already feel and build up their resistance.
* ...that a more crafty
and cunning survivor will employ their whiles to pretend to comply rather than actually comply (which I would consider justified
under the circumstances).
*...and finally, as with anything, positive reinforcement works better than negative
reinforcement. Use persuasion and you'll get better results.
I have deliberately not talked about rights or liberty
because I thought I would make the argument based on a perspective closer to your point of view rather than to mine. I don't
think that I could win over wholesale any more than you could win me over to the point of view that anyone needs or benefits
from psychiatry.
lastly I want to point out to you (not for the first time today, I hope) the 2005 study "Compulsory
community and involuntary outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders". the findings of the study said
that forced treatment does not work.
whereas, I believe, lovingkindness, decency and empathy (not in abundance,
I know) can bridge a gap. if you have anger in you, I can see how forced psychiatry might actually push you into violence
out of frustration with your powerlessness.
I hope you will consider my words.
Amy Bookbinder, Counselor/Social Justice Educator
xdouglas jorgensen
please stop the forced treatment
of people. i was diagnosed schizophrenic as a result of a drug i was put on for a neurological disorder. after my release
from the hospital, i was kept on a strong & extremely expensive regiment of drugs by a dr. who told me "if you don't
take these drugs for the rest of your life, you will relapse back into the schizophrenia worse than before." besides
repeatedly telling me this, he would talk about me to my mother as if i were not even present, & ignore my questions.
the drugs made me feel like a zombie, i could barely function, & they had horrific side effects. i eventually stopped
taking the medication & seeing this dr., only to recover completely & discover that my mental illness was drug induced.
had i listened to that dr. i would still be forced to take these medications which in no way helped, but rather hurt my health
& well being. i urge you to stop the inhumane act of forcing individuals into treatment.
Becky Perry
These "treatments" are not cures
and are not safe or effective. This is prison without due process.
Rosanne Parisi
The "mental health" profession are running a scam to keep
thier jobs at the expense of thier patients mental health besides bilking New York State out of millions of dollars.
Eva Scholle
What do you think will be accomplished by Involuntary Outpatient Commitment? Dont be fooled. The goal
of helping society, families, vulnerable people, and democracy is not served by Involuntary Outpatient Commitment. Denying
freedom to our citizens by using techniques that parallel the treatment given to terrorist detainees, now proven undesirable
by the American public, is not the American way. Do not think otherwise. Forced treatment and denying specific
groups their freedom is not acceptable! Our laws protect our citizens no matter what their orientations are, so why
are vulnerable people who have not broken our laws be treated with laws enacted for the benefit and profit of others?
Unfortunately, priorities are being misplaced. Every day everyday people
seek help for their distress. Since real help is not easily available for those who are seeking or needing it, individuals
and their families face the debilitating consequences that lead to more extreme measures. If real help was available,
not help that makes one lose ones ability to function and live in society, not something that causes premature death and debilitating
medical issues, nor take away ones personal freedoms, child custody rights and discriminates against you, people would choose
to get the relief/help they need. The fact is with real engagement and real help there are very few people who are not
reachable.
We know effective ways to help people in their distress.
We have established services that are successful in helping people live better lives who are productive members of society.
We are creating solutions that are touted by both the people who are looking for or needing help and wanting to help them.
Why not invest in the people who seek and need help in ways that are cost effective, helpful and protect the freedoms that
this country prides itself in?
Do not allow Kendras Law to prevail.
Vote no!
Eva Scholle
Founder and President
of The Empowerment Center
Founder and President of Movement To Change, Inc.
Mike Whitney
Sheila A. Warren
Obi Laing
I am opposed to Kendra's Law and I endorse the call for No Permanence and No Extension of Kendra's
Law: Involuntary Patient Torture. I feel that this law is inhumane, unjust, and a violation of Human Rights. I
do not feel that is what this country is about. All people should be treated equally regardless of their mental status.
This is a no-brainer.
Elaine Levin
PLEASE, No forced outpatient treatment. It is inhumane and does not help anyone. I am a survivor
of forced inpatient treatment.
Monica J Elwell
I firmly believe that 'Kendra's Law' and other such Involuntary Outpatient Commitment
Laws are not the answer for getting Mental Health Consumers the treatments we may at times need. Your decision to back such
laws is actually hurtful to a larger majority of individuals living with Mental Health Diagnosis than it is helpful to those
few who require interventions (and many forceful treatments fail). Forced treatments cause harm, traumatize individuals and
create a fear of Mental Health Services, Law Enforcement, Public Services (Ambulance Personnel) and care givers. Alternatives
are the answer, there are many very knowledgeable persons in the Consumer Recovery Movement that have found and created better
options to care for individuals experiencing Mental Health issues. Please utilize these programs, WRAP (Wellness Recovery
Action Plans) by Mary Ellen Copeland, Pathways to Recovery by Priscilla Ridgeway, Lori Davidson, et.al, Intentional Peer Support
by Shery Mead, and the Boston University Recovery Workbook, are just a few of the Alternatives that help. Alternative treatments
are necessary and a move towards Recovery-Oriented Systems of Care is a better way of taking care of individuals living with
Mental Illnesses than forced treatments.
Thank you for your time, respectfully,
Network Representative, Advocacy
Initiative Network of Maine
Louise Stapert
This is inhumane treatment. Housing people like cattle does not address and treat the problem.
It may momentarily get those being complained about "out of the way", it does nothing to help the person.
There has to be humane treatment that protects their rights as citizens of this country.
This is inhumane treatment. Housing people like cattle does not address and treat the problem. It may
momentarily get those being complained about "out of the way", it does nothing to help the person. There has
to be humane treatment that protects their rights as citizens of this country.
John Marshall
the freedom to choice is the only freedom
Paulette Shalhoub
I am outraged
that forced psychiatric "treatments" are still the order of the day in some backward states like New York. There
is (a) no objective proof of any mental illness; and (b) no proof that any of the drugs targeting them work any better than
placebo; and (b) these drugs do terrible harm to the brain. Before you order someone else to take them against their
will, I suggest that you try them yourself.
Dorothy
Dundas
Stop involuntary outpatient torture!!!
Barbara Jean Harrington
Dear Mr Ortiz,
Please consider
what has been repeated over and over in these comments. Person centered plans, peer support groups, alternatives to these
very dangerous and deadly psych meds. Ive been through this. With a wrap plan, people come together to help that person become
empowered by bringing out that persons strengths, Offering a person hope and kindness and understanding and Acceptance !!!!
As a Peer in recovery and paid facilitator. Anyone that does this, paid or not can feel the power of acceptance, of {knowing}
We also need money going into Consumer run Organizations. We are all spread thin and deserve what our counterparts get. Fair
wages, benefits vacations etc. Again the system takes advantage. More importantly though is that we see people come to our
group that get jobs housing etc Basic needs, but sooo much more. These programs have been proven to be cost effective. Please
Mr Ortiz, if you could take our common themes to heart. Come to Oregon and see for yourself
Sonjinetta Cooper-Seaaright
Please.
kill Kendra's Law consider
all of the facts as to why it was passed and end the unjust knee jerk reaction vote to be part of the "real" solution.
Diane Johnson
Roxeene Fernandez
no
force treatment
Julia Valles
No force treatment
Ariel Rowland
People should have choices to recovery and stop the Abuse
LS
Charles Martin Crocker, Jr.
Melissa Farrell
Medication
must be a choice, and not a mandate!
National Association
for Rights Protection and Advocacy
Among other reasons for opposing re-authorization,
persons of color are over-represented among persons receiving coercive outpatient orders.
Rosaria S Marinaro
IOC is a blatant civil and human
rigths violation. I have been IOC twice. It is not an assist of any sort. It is a sham and an integrity
of soul buster. They really want people to sign volutary agreements. This amounts to declaring that you agree
with the treatment and is in my mind probation. Please encourge people who have been
IOC'd/AOT'D after the first
6 mmonths to make the system take them to court before a judge. This makes the shrink oto have to appear in court. It
makes them work for their money. People are afraid to go to court and they should be encouged to do so. In Queens
they take us to the real Supreme court and not the court associated with the Creedmoor Institution. But the real point
is to end this horrilbe law... and for the people who are caught under it please help them to understand the violation of
their freedom to put only tthe drugs the person wants into their body and the right to do with their time what they want for
those who are subjected to day treatment progams. In stuggle I remain opposed to this form of psychic torture.
Myra Kovary
Forcing people
into services will never address the real problems. It might look like it is working in the short run, but at what cost
to the humanity of the people on the receiving end? And at what cost to the humanity of the people who are implementing
the force? Haven't we learned anything from history about the use of force and torture? The people on the receiving
end suffer the most, but in the end -- it diminishes our whole society. Stand up for what is right and stop involuntary
outpatient commitment now!
Voices of the Heart
Mental Patients Liberation Alliance
Nationwide Call to Action: Stop Forced "Mental Health" Treatment
Center for Human Rights of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
Ithaca Mental Patients Advocac Coalition
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