Mental health care bill deserves support: Oakland Tribune 09 24 2002

Mental illness is a tragedy for any family. But watching the decline of a relative whose mental illness prevents him or her from accepting treatment and medication is tortuous. And it's a ticking time bomb for the larger community. Davis should sign "Laura's Law" and restore balance to the outpatient treatment of the mentally ill.

It can be a heartbreaking and bewildering family dilemma. A relative who is mentally ill refuses treatment and medication. Family members watch helplessly as their loved one deteriorates, each day hoping and praying the person doesn't hurt him or herself or someone else.

State legislators have passed a bill that would allow friends, relatives, police and mental health care professionals to seek court-ordered involuntary outpatient treatment for the mentally ill. It's a humane and practical bill with safeguards against abuse, and Gov. Gray Davis should sign it.

The only drawback we see is that lawmakers have not appropriated any funds to implement the bill. We are concerned the law will be only on the books with no commitment to seeing it actually put into practice.

California's law protecting the rights of individuals who are mentally ill was well-intentioned, but it pushed the pendulum too far. Under the 1967 Lanterman-Petris-Short law, it was almost impossible for doctors or judges to force a mentally ill person to undergo outpatient treatment or take medication. For uncooperative patients who were suicidal or potentially homicidal, the only alternative was to arrest or hospitalize them.

Indeed, the bill, AB1421, introduced by Helen Thomson, D-Davis, was given the name Laura's Law in memory of a young woman who was killed by a mental patient who believed the FBI had ordered people to poison his food. Laura Wilcox was just 19 when she was gunned down at a Nevada City public mental health clinic by the enraged mentally ill man.

The idea of forcing someone to accept medication and treatment calls up horror stories from the past when mental patients were subjected to forced electric shock therapy and frontal lobotomies. However, there are safeguards in the bill to prevent such abuses.

It guarantees due process; Involuntary medication and treatment cannot be imposed unless family members and mental health professionals are consulted. It is based on a New York law that studies have shown to be effective in treating the mentally ill and reducing the cost of repeated hospitalizations and arrests.

Our concern is that there is no money set aside for the implementation of the bill. It's a concern we frequently express about laws with no accompanying appropriation. How effective is legislation if there is no money behind it? We don't need window-dressing laws that are passed only to appease those concerned about the issue.

One suggestion would be for lawmakers to find a way to capture the resultant savings to emergency rooms and jails and funnel them into a fund for AB1421. However, legislators still must find sources of funding to get the bill's implementation up and running.

Mental illness is a tragedy for any family. But watching the decline of a relative whose mental illness prevents him or her from accepting treatment and medication is tortuous. And it's a ticking time bomb for the larger community. Davis should sign Laura's Law and restore balance to the outpatient treatment of the mentally ill.