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TO: California Treatment Advocacy Coalition
FROM: Carla Jacobs & Randall Hagar
DATE: February 22, 2000
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HELP AB1800 OVER IT'S FIRST HURDLE

LPS reform (AB1800) faces its first test on March 14th when it goes before the Assembly Mental Health Committee. AB must make it through the Health Committee or it will die, and along with it our hopes for sensible laws that will allow for treatment of those most in need of care.

Please help us reach the members of the committee; tell them that California's laws stress the right to be sick over the right to be well and must be changed. Remember that the Health Committee's is responsible for a range of issues far broader than mental health and many of its members will be unaware of the need for LPS reform. PLEASE TEACH THEM.

Those who oppose LPS reform have already spread pleas for letters to be sent to the members of the Health Committee. Don't let this small, but vocal faction dictate what happens to Californians in need of treatment.

Please write to each of the committee's members and let them know that LPS must be reformed. Their contact information is below. Proclaim your support of AB1800 in the first sentence and then back it up with your personal experience or some of the many reasons why California must have rational laws to promote the care of those overcome by mental illness.

If you live in the district of one of the committeemembers, your help is vitally important. Please contact your assemblymember--by letter, phone or, best of all, in person. Remember, you only need to write one letter--just keep changing the heading each time you send it to a different legislator. Through a single letter you can speak for thousands who have been denied treatment because of LPS.

After the addresses of the Health Committee are two items that may supply fuel for the arguments in your letter. The first is a letter by Professor Kenneth Kress of the University of Iowa, one of the nation's experts on laws like LPS. Professor Kress reports that AB1800 will not only save lives, but can also conserve our mental health system's resources.

The final piece is by Charles Sosebee, the head of California Clients for LPS Reform--a group of consumers who recognize that any law which prevents treatment of those incapable of making informed medical decisions must be changed. Mr. Sosebee presents many strong reasons why AB1800 must be passed that may be of use to you.

Assemblyman Martin Gallegos
Chair Assembly Health Committee
State Capitol
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2157
(District 57-City of Industry, La Puente, Azusa)

Assemblywoman Patricia Bates
Vice Chair Assembly Health Committee
State Capitol, Room 4009
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2173
(District 73-Laguna Niguel, Oceanside, San Clemente)

Assemblyman Sam Aanestad
State Capitol, Room 4144
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2103
(District 3-Yuba, Nevada, Sierra, Placer, Butte, and Modoc Counties)

Assemblywoman Ellen Corbett
State Capitol
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2118
(District 18-San Leandro, Hayward, Union City)

Assemblyman Dave Cox
State Capitol, Room 2002
Sacramento, CA 942490001
Fax: (916) 319-2105
(District 5-Sacramento)

Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh
State Capitol
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2150
(District 5-Huntington Park)

Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl
State Capitol
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2141
(District 41- LA County)

Assemblyman George Runner
State Capitol, Room 6027
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2136
(District 36-Lancaster, Palmdale, Santa Clarita)

Assemblywoman Helen Thomson
State Capitol, Room 4140
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2108
(District 8-Yolo and Solano Counties)

Assemblyman Edward Vincent
State Capitol
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2151
(District 51-Inglewood, Hawthorne)

Assemblyman Howard Wayne
State Capitol
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2178
(District 78-San Diego, La Jolla and South)

Assemblyman Herb Wesson
State Capitol
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2147
(District 47-Los Angeles)

Assemblyman Scott Wildman
CA State Assembly Member, Assembly
State Capitol, Room 3091
PO Box 942849
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax: (916) 319-2143
(District 43-Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena)

Assemblywoman Charlene Zettel
State Capitol, Room 5158
Sacramento, CA 94249-0001
Fax # (916) 319-2175
(District 75-San Diego, Poway)

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Although your editorial of January 14, 2000 correctly recognizes the need to reform California civil commitment laws, concerns about its potential costs are unjustified.

Ten studies by researchers with varying ideological views in different states almost invariably find that outpatient commitment reduces hospital days and therefore psychiatric service costs dramatically. Dr. Geller’s 1998 Massachusetts study found that seriously mentally ill individuals on outpatient treatment were hospitalized 225 days less per year than those not on outpatient treatment. At $500/ day (the Bee’s conservative estimate), that’s a savings of $112,500 per outpatient per year. Dr. Rohland’s Iowa study demonstrated seriously mentally ill persons on outpatient commitment spent 86% less time as inpatients on average than those not on outpatient commitment. That’s a reduction from 33 to 4 days per year on average. This saved $14,500 per consumer per year. North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio and D.C. report similar dramatic reductions.

Money saved by reducing hospitalization costs can be spent to increase community services. Far from diverting resources away from admittedly needed community services, Assemblywoman Thomson’s bill will substantially increase funding. California’s mental health budget could be increased by millions of dollars without the state or local government spending one penny more.

Kenneth J. Kress
Professor of Law and
Director, Civil Commitment Project,
University of Iowa College of Law

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Re: Support AB 1800

The archaic and inhumane Lanterman-Petris-Short (LPS) Act must be changed to enable us as a society to compassionately bend down to assist those who are struck by severe mental disorders. As consumers of the mental health system, we support AB 1800.

California Clients for LPS Reform is a group of people with mental illness who acknowledge that mental illness is a biological condition and recognize that the current LPS system does not protect them should they become so severely disabled by their illness that they need involuntary help BEFORE they become a danger to self or others.

Today, people are dying in the streets with their rights on. How deplorable! The mental health system can give success and hope-when it is understood and utilized. Involuntary treatment has been portrayed as a civil rights abridgement of people with mental illness. Abuses can occur in any system, but overall more abuse occurs because of lack of treatment.

There is nothing civil about leaving a person suffering on the streets in the name of protecting their rights. The civil rights dogma which permeates our involuntary treatment system denies too many people the recovery that we are so thankful for.

As we go into the 21^st Century, it is time to stop this discrimination and bring all people with mental illness to the health that gives them a voice at the table.

Reforming California’s involuntary treatment laws to be more in keeping with the civility and care received by other Californians suffering other illness or disability has at least twelve virtues:

1. It’s education that mental illness is indeed a no-fault-to-the-sufferer condition and that people with mental illness deserve the same level of assistance as would be provided any other person suffering a severe disorder that effects their decisional ability.

2. The quality of life of many clients would improve as their lives became more on an even keel, strengthening their relations with family and friends, and increasing their chances of sustaining meaningful community activities or employment.

3. It would significantly improve the care for the person with mental illness because they would now have lasting relationships with their treatment teams instead of sporadic care by strangers.

4. The reduced hospital expense incurred by revolving door treatment could be deployed to community services for others currently in need.

5. Stigma would be reduced. When treatment is done before danger occurs, the perception of people with mental illness as "dangerous" will be eliminated. The "average Joe" public will no longer associate mental illness with the disheveled homeless person eating out of trash cans. The media will no longer be able to find the "sensational" to report and will have to report instead about recovery.

6. Victimization of people with mental illness such as rape, assault, and financial advantage taking would reduce as people become more able to protect themselves through their own health.

7. It will reduce homelessness.

8. It will reduce criminalization.

9. It will reduce suicide.

10. "Community Assisted Treatment" will reduce the possibility of abuse because the person will be in the community-seen by others-rather then invisible behind closed hospital doors or in jails and prisons.

11. It will give the client more autonomy as the client participates in choices of services to be provided through the treatment plan.

12. Finally, it commits the system to the person. By agreeing to provide the services called for in the treatment plan, it requires the system to provide them.

In conclusion, the time has come that all the clients in California are heard including those of us who know treatment helps and does work.

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California Treatment Advocacy Coalition
To receive future updates on LPS Reform
contact [email protected]