3. San Francisco Chronicle, URL: http://www.sfgate.com/neglect/, March 25,
2001, "State of Neglect: Hear Their Voices"

No one knows more about California's failure to treat the mentally ill
than
the family members who helplessly watch their loved ones suffer from
schizophrenia, clinical depression, or bipolar disorder.

The state Legislature needs to provide enough money for outreach programs,

housing, and community-based treatment facilities to give the mentally ill a

real chance at hope and healing. At the same time, legislators need to
modify
current laws to allow greater latitude for involuntary treatment
--outpatient
whenever possible -- that would be carefully screened and monitored through
judicial and medical review.

The current system is a disgrace. Don't take our word for it. Listen to
the
stories of some of the people who have responded to our "State of Neglect"
editorial series.

Then make sure your voice is heard in Sacramento. Let legislators and Gov.

Gray Davis know you care about the health and dignity of your fellow
Californians, as well as the squandering of tax dollars on medical
emergencies, incarcerations and homelessness that could have been prevented.




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We have a son who is mentally ill. We know what living in the streets is
about. Our son ended up in parked cars and pandering.
We have all suffered through the 1967 Lanterman-Petris-Short Act which (in

severely restricting involuntary treatment) only considers what is thought
to
be a person's rights; suffering and the inability to reason is not
considered. LPS laws allow a slow suicide to sound like something American.
I
have felt the frustration of having the police in my house explaining to me
I
must be physically attacked with a knife or gun or suffer bodily harm before

the ill person can be taken in.

Fortunately, my son was sent to his father's in Idaho and in three weeks
he
was sent to a state mental hospital for six months. He received excellent
treatment, care, compassion, and interaction with us, his family. The staff
at Idaho told me "they do not treat their citizens like they do in
California
-- we take care of our people." It's much easier to tell an unmedicated
mentally ill client "you don't need your family involved, you have rights."
The mentally ill latch onto to "rights" like a secret weapon with no
understanding that those rights keep them ill and decompensating.

-- A reader from Nevada County.



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We are parents of a schizophrenic daughter who will soon be released from
state prison. Will she return to the Tenderloin and a life of virtual
homelessness, danger, illegal drugs and pregnancy as she has in the past?
Her
original "crime" was a misdemeanor several court appearances back, but the
true crime is the refusal of America to face up to the increasingly
desperate
plight of those with severe mental illness. California can and must do
better.
-- A reader from Rohnert Park



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I suffered from bipolar illness (manic depression) and experienced both
being homeless and in jail for eight years during the 1980s. What good are
your civil rights when your illness controls your thinking and puts you at
risk of harming others or being killed yourself? This is a medical issue,
not
an issue of civil rights. I regained my normal, functional life when the
proper medication was finally prescribed for me. Although I lost my wife, my

home, my job, and most of my belongings because of my illness, I am very
grateful that I survived.
-- A reader from Pasadena



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My son has had paranoid schizophrenia for the past 27 years. He has been
caught in the "revolving door" syndrome -- in and out of jails and
hospitals,
wandering the state -- unaware of the illness which caused his confused
thinking and delusions. I'm sure his cost to the state has been literally
millions in treatment and jails. He has never been required to stay on the
medications; he has never found a way out of his schizophrenic paranoia. It
is sad. He is in state prison as I write -- his only crime is having a
diseased brain. My hands are tied -- I have been told he has a
constitutional
right to be insane.
-- A reader from Morongo Valley



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I know had I not received care for my schizo-affective disorder I would be

dead and, due to the depth of my paranoia, perhaps have harmed someone else
as well. Time and time again I wanted to buy a gun to "protect"' myself from

unseen assailants. My doctor worked hard to persuade me that this was not
the
way to stay "safe." I have had multiple hospitalizations, been restrained in

four point restraints and given medicine against my will. It is with
hindsight that I am grateful to those who treated me. I would have had no
life if these service were not available.
-- A reader from Eureka



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For two years, my sister with schizophrenia lived on the California
streets
with her 10-year-old son. The family could do nothing; it was her right to
wander in delusion. Then without warning, the untreated symptoms of her
illness caused her to dress her son as a woman and herself in battle
fatigues, ride 60 miles in a taxi and kill our 78-year-old mother.
Our mother was murdered by old-time thought embodied in the
Lanterman-Petris-Short Act. My sister needed treatment before she became a
danger. She was too ill to realize that for herself and the law precluded us

from helping her in time. The state now spends $100,000 a year for her
placement in a state hosptial as a result of a "not guilty by reason of
insanity" judgment.

-- A reader from Long Beach



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My friend -- a Harvard Law School graduate -- had a decades-long struggle
with mental illness. It cost him his career, marriage and a requirement that

his visits with his children be supervised.
He recently decided God had cured him. Since he had achieved a high level
of stability on his medications, to stop them seemed foolhardy to me -- but
apparently not to his client-center doctor. Predictably, within months of
easing off the medications, my friend ended up in jail on six counts of
sexual harassment.

After he restabilized on his medications and was released, I asked him why

he though this happened. His reply was simply, "My doctor should never have
let me entertain the fantasy that I was cured."

-- A reader from Ventura



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Diseases like schizophrenia have a biological basis and can only be
treated
with the right medications. Schizophrenia can happen to anyone. My son grew
up in a very supportive, upper-middle- class family, and attended one of the

best schools in the country. He was even hoping to get a football
scholarship
before his illness surfaced. Mental illness can strike anyone regardless of
environmental conditions or economic status. Unfortunately, most people --
including some family members -- don't want to face the reality of mental
illness and leave their loved ones to fend for themselves. The tens of
thousands of mentally ill on the streets of California is a sad commentary
on
a so-called advanced society. We should all be ashamed.
-- A reader from Pleasant Hill.