Psychiatric Police State

California is now a Psychiatric Police State. And lest you think this only applies to the unhoused, they are saying that they want to apply this "help" to people before mental illness makes them unhoused. So it applies to everyone.

We must resist and we must use all available means. We need the most militant kind of anti-psychiatry movement, and working at all levels. The majority of these CA legislators still believe that the psychiatric system is “helping” people, rather than seeing that these drugs are poisons and that they are the reason we have more and more psychiatric basket cases.

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker

California lawmakers approved CARE Court. What comes next? w/audio

Disability, Civil Rights, Racial Justice and Housing Advocacy Organizations Urge CA Governor Newsom to Veto ‘CARE Court’ Legislation

US: California Should Enact Housing, Treatment Options That Work, Deceptively Named ’CARE Court’ Legislation Will Undermine Effective Solutions

“The so-called ‘CARE Court’ is not about care at all – it plays on prejudices against people who are unhoused and living with mental health conditions to create a coercive system of court-ordered treatment when we know that involuntary treatment is ineffective and inhumane,” said Olivia Ensign, senior US program advocate at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of pouring millions of dollars into coercive measures that are set up to fail, lawmakers should invest in proven treatment and support programs.”

Governor Gavin Newsom proposed the CARE Court in March 2022. In the face of consistent opposition from a long list of disability, racial justice, peer-led, and other civil and human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, the California legislature passed the bill in August. The bill now heads to Newsom for his signature.

The involuntary referral to the court can result in an order from a judge, called a CARE plan. That plan may include an order exerting power over fundamental areas of a person’s life, including medication, housing, and other services and support. Failure to obey this CARE plan can result in additional intervention, including possible conservatorship, which can strip a person’s ability to make decisions over their own lives and deny them the right to autonomy over their own health.

The new law will divert resources away from existing behavioral health and housing initiatives, potentially including successful community-based voluntary treatment, housing programs, and other social supports. The CARE Act does not create any new behavioral health or housing resources. Instead, it redirects money already in the budget to programs required by a CARE plan, placing additional pressure on resources that are already in short supply.

“The politicians who have promoted the CARE Court have repeatedly and falsely claimed it provides ‘voluntary’ treatment, when, in fact, the entire system is based on coercion,” Ensign said. “A person’s ability to access critical services and housing should not hinge on court control.”