LAW, ALTERNATIVES AND CHANGE

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, has been practicing law in Alaska since graduating from Harvard Law School in 1978.  Informed by his self-described “escape” from being made permanently mentally ill by the mental health system after a breakdown in 1982, he has moved from practicing business law, mostly transactional, to almost exclusively focusing on psychiatric rights.  When he read Mad in America in 2002,  Mr. Gottstein viewed it as an evidentiary roadmap to challenge court-ordered psychiatric drugging on the grounds that it is not in the person’s best interest.  To pursue this, he co-founded the tax-exempt public interest law firm, Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®), to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock throughout the United States.  Starting in 2004, as a result of the escalating harm done to children through psychiatric drugging, PsychRights adopted addressing that problem as a priority.

Since founding PsychRights in 2002, Mr. Gottstein has won four Alaska Supreme Court cases in which forced psychiatric drugging or involuntary commitment court procedures were found to be unconstitutional or otherwise illegal.  In addition to litigating these issues, because he believes solutions must also be implemented, Jim was instrumental in launching Soteria-Alaska, a non-coercive alternative to psychiatric hospitalization and CHOICES, Inc., a community based program, both of which work with people who choose not to take psychiatric drugs.

Jim Gottstein Ask Michael Moore About Psychiatric Drugs and Gun Violence

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March 21, 2013

In Michael Moore’s movie, “Bowling for Columbine,” the question is repeatedly asked; “why are there so many gun murders in the United States compared to other countries?” But no answer is given. However, in Gary Null’s recent film, “The Drugging of our Children,” Mr. Moore says that it is quite possible Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold shot all of those students at Columbine for no other reason than they were given psychiatric drugs. He called for an investigation into the role of such drugs in the murders at Columbine, but does not appear to be following up. Now, there is an opportunity to ask him about it!!!
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Categorized in: Antidepressants, Blogs, Featured Blogs, Psychiatric Drugs, Suicide, Uncategorized, Violence

Jim Gottstein PsychRights’ Letter to the President’s Task Force on Gun Violence

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January 11, 2013

I am flattered and pleased to have been asked by MadInAmerica to post here the letter PsychRights wrote Monday to Vice President Biden regarding the misguided, counterproductive and very dangerous focus on identifying and forcing “treatment” on people diagnosed with mental illness as any part of the solution to gun violence in the United States.
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Categorized in: Blogs, Coercion, Featured Blogs, Non-Drug Approaches, Psychiatric Drugs

Jim Gottstein Abbott’s Admissions of Criminality: Do They Accomplish Anything?

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October 8, 2012

The big fines paid by the drug companies are not effective, yet the government is ignoring the simple solution of enforcing Medicaid and Medicare’s restrictions to drugs that are prescribed for medically accepted indications. It is hard to take seriously the government’s stated commitment to rooting out fraud when this massive fraud is consciously allowed to continue. I know it is consciously allowing the fraud to continue because the government has been antagonistic to our whistleblower cases raising this point. Massive harm is not enough to cause government action. Massive fraud when the government is drowning in red ink is not enough either. What is it going to take?
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Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Psychiatric Drugs

Jim Gottstein Let’s All Support Stephen Sheller’s FDA Petition to Revoke the Pediatric Approval of Risperdal

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September 27, 2012

Thanks to Ginger Breggin for posting about Stephen Sheller’s FDA Petition to Revoke the Pediatric Approval of Risperdal on her Facebook Page. Many of you know that Mr. Sheller recently settled a case against Johnson & Johnson over Risperdal causing breasts to grow in a young boy. What is not yet well-known is that on July 27, 2012, Mr. Sheller filed what is known as a “citizen’s petition” to revoke the approval of Risperdal (risperidone), and its cousin Invega, for use on children and youth.
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Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Uncategorized

Jim Gottstein An Opportunity to Walk the Talk — Occupy the American Psychiatric Association May 5th in Philadelphia

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April 15, 2012

On May 5, 2012,  MindFreedom International is holding its Occupy the American Psychiatric Association protest at the APA’s annual convention in Philadelphia.  Momentum is building for the protest and it presents a special opportunity to literally walk the talk by peacefully marching on …
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Categorized in: Blogs, Community, DSM, Non-Drug Approaches, Recovery/Empowerment

Jim Gottstein The Illegality of Forced Drugging and Electroshock

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March 21, 2012

Court ordered psychiatric drugging and electroshock is illegal when measured against the constitutional requirements for forcing someone to ingest drugs, or be subjected to electroshock, against their will. Under the United States Constitution, if a right is considered “fundamental,” in …
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: , , , , ,

Jim Gottstein Diagnosing Dangers

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January 15, 2012

As I wrote in my first blog, A Three Pronged Approach to Mental Health System Change, after I read Mad in America in 2002, the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) was formed to mount a strategic litigation campaign against …
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Categorized in: Blogs

Jim Gottstein A Three Pronged Approach to Mental Health System Change

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December 30, 2011

I thought I would begin my blogging career with a description of how I see three elements that reinforce each other in ways that can lead to meaningful system change. These are: (1) Changing Public Attitudes, (2) Creation of Other Choices …
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Categorized in: Blogs, Coercion