NEW YORK, NY – Attorney General Eliot Spitzer stood tall today by proposing legislation that would allow New York State to join the 39 other states across the country that have made outpatient commitment (OPC) available to people suffering from neurobiological disorders like schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. We applaud the Attorney General for working to protect individuals who suffer from these illnesses while simultaneously protecting communities.

OPC will help ensure that individuals with severe brain disorders get the medications they need to control the symptoms of their diseases so fewer become homeless, suicidal, and sometimes violent. OPC will help the Andrew Goldsteins, Michael Laudors, and Larry Hoags of the world, while simultaneously keeping our communities safer.

New York is one of the last states to have OPC even though studies repeatedly have shown it to be effective. For example, in Washington, D.C., hospital admissions decreased from 1.81 per year without OPC to 0.95 per year after participation in the program. Similarly, in Ohio hospital admissions decreased from 1.5 per year to 0.4 per year, and in Iowa from 1.2 per year to 0.3 per year. A study in Ohio showed that OPC increased patients’ attendance at psychiatric appointments from 5.7 per year to 13.0 per year, and increased attendance at day treatment sessions from 23 per year to 60 per year. And, in North Carolina only 30 percent of patients on OPC refused medication during a six-month period compared to 66 percent of patients not in the program.

The Bellevue Hospital OPC pilot program, right here in our own backyard, demonstrated comparable results. In fact, a study of the program released in December revealed that those individuals who participated in OPC and had enhanced community services spent 57 percent less time in the hospital than those who were not on OPC.

Our members believe, as Hershel Hardin a former board member of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Union said, that mandated treatment can free individuals from the bastille of their psychosis and enable them to engage in a meaningful exercise of their civil liberties. Mandated treatment is a lot kinder and more compassionate than mandated non-treatment. This bill helps everyone without trampling on the rights of anyone. It makes communities safer, and helps people with brain disorders. It’s a win-win bill.

We prevent people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease from living on the streets because we understand they have a brain disorder that prevents them from sufficiently caring for themselves. We mandate treatment for individuals with tuberculosis who refuse to take medication because we understand they are potentially dangerous to others. People afflicted with the debilitating effects of severe psychiatric illnesses must have access to similar protections.

It’s time New York joins 78 percent of the nation and implements OPC programs that will enable New Yorkers who are held hostage by their disease escape their symptoms and step into recovery.

This bill must be enacted into law so New Yorkers will no longer have to complacently accept increasing rates of homelessness, violence, suicide and incarceration as a way of life for it’s citizens with brain disorders.

We look forward to working with Attorney General Spitzer to make statewide OPC a reality so that the welfare and potential of all New Yorkers are protected.

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