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By California Co-Chair Carla Jacobs

Editorials on consequences of lack of treatment of severe mental illness point to the need for passage of AB 1421 to bring treatment to those who need it most

Los Angeles, Ca. - The Los Angeles' Times well deserves their just-announced Pulitzer Prize on a groundbreaking editorial series on California's continued failure of those with untreated severe mental illnesses.

The Los Angeles Times has demonstrated once again that it is on the forefront in educating Californians about the crises that result from the archaic Lanterman, Petris, Short (LPS) Act - criminalization, violence, homelessness, victimization, and suicide.

Current law continually fails to protect California's most vulnerable citizens: people with the severest forms of mental illness, schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. The Los Angeles Times explored the issues behind the crisis, focusing in with respect and compassion on the people most injured by the law - those with severe untreated biological brain diseases.

In "Make Chris Take His Meds," the editorial writers summed up neatly the problem with current California law:

On any given day, about 50,000 severely mentally ill homeless people roam California's streets, rummaging through trash bins, doing battle with invisible demons and occasionally inflicting harm on very real citizens. They do so largely because laws crafted decades ago put their "civil right" to be free ahead of society's right to compel them to be treated.

These well-intentioned laws made some sense when they were passed, in the 1960s. Then, the awful side effects of some psychiatric medications turned patients into virtual zombies, blurring their vision, stiffening their muscles and dulling their memories. Better medications are available today; as a result, lawmakers will have a chance soon to make California safer and saner.

Legal criteria for assisted treatment - court-ordered treatment in the community - should be based on the severity of an individual's symptoms, not behavioral by-products such as dangerousness, as is currently the standard. When we wait for danger, we wait for someone to become homeless and confused, we wait for someone to be repeatedly imprisoned for minor infractions, we wait for someone to commit suicide or - sometimes - to commit violence. When we choose to wait for dangerousness, we choose not to act until it is too late.

Our state doesn't abandon others who suffer from medical illnesses the way we abandon those with the most severe brain diseases. Can you imagine waiting for a person with Alzheimer's to lash out before providing him or her with involuntary medical care? Can you imagine leaving someone who has had a debilitating stroke to fend for themselves on the street? In either case, the victim of the disease would be given medication until their symptoms abated sufficiently for them to make a rationale decision regarding continuing treatment. It is no different with severe brain diseases like schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder.

Even when a person qualifies under the current stringent standards for involuntary hospitalization, the person may still not receive needed medical care. Current law allows an involuntarily hospitalized psychiatric patient to refuse medication. This leads to the revolving door that is so commonly known to family members - short-term hospital admissions, jailings and homelessness. There is no procedure for mandated medication supervision, daily living structure and rehabilitative support for those people who require it to maintain their recovery once back in the community.

The Pulitzer-winning editorials call for passage of Assembly Bill 1421, a common sense law that resoundingly passed the Assembly last 65-1. Passage would make a tremendous difference to California's estimated 50,000 homeless, approximately the same as the total population of Davis or San Rafael; to the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 inmates in California's jails and prisons with severe mental illness, making the LA County jail the nation's de-facto largest psychiatric hospital; and to family members who each day struggle to find a ray of hope for their loved ones.

The Los Angeles Times series brought light and understanding to an issue that is incredibly complex and fraught with misconceptions. It helped readers understand that reform of the LPS Act is very much a stand for civil rights - because, as the editorial writers put it best:

It is a symptom of this nation's goodness that it protects the rights and liberties of the mentally ill. In this noble pursuit, we have granted some genuinely helpless individuals the liberty to harm themselves, and others, in never-ending cycles. Free people should always hesitate to diminish anyone's civil liberties, but in this instance there's good reason.

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