Involuntary Care Doesn’t Work. What BC Should Do Instead

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From The Tyee: “A common misconception is that B.C. has decreased its reliance on mental health detentions over the years, which has led to the current crises in homelessness, mental health and addictions. But the evidence shows that detentions have, in fact, increased dramatically.

The province is detaining more people in psychiatric facilities than before. In 2005, there were about 12,000 involuntary admissions under B.C.’s Mental Health Act. In 2023 this number surged to nearly 30,000 involuntary admissions, a staggering increase of 150 per cent.

In addition to the high number of people placed in involuntary detention, B.C. has extremely broad laws allowing forced psychiatric treatment that do not exist in any other province.

An evidence-based approach clearly shows that the reliance on detention, force and coercion over the past two decades has not led to better outcomes. Instead, resources should be focused on voluntary mental health care, services and community support that people desperately need and often cannot access.”

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4 COMMENTS

  1. I have worked in mental health field, and have witnessed many people detained with mental illness and addiction. Once they clear and start medication for while,they have to release them as they no longer fit the criteria to be kept. We can’t detain or force treatment, just in case they may use again. People have the right to live at risk. For some folks it is a revolving door, and treatment is not an option as they experiance brain injury from drugs and overdosing many times. I guess we just hope for that one time that it works for them. I know most working in system want to help, and feel sadness and frustration, and for families as well. It is a extremely complex issue, and no one size fits. It doesn’t help to have
    dealers waiting at the door for them. My father suffered with alcoholism 60 years ago,and I can’t image if he would have been able to be in recovery if there were people on the street offering cheap alcohol at every corner. He luckily found treatment and AA and embraced it. Funny, he was locked up for public drunkeness on “skid row”. He was offered live in treatment right from there. He probably would have died if not. He was able to help others and even went back the street to help,and he made a huge impact during his lifetime. Offering support without shame, and having compassion goes a long way. I wish I had the answer, but it is big question.

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    • There is no such thing as “mental illness.” It is a social construct invented to keep rich and powerful people in power. So—how can “medication” possibly be helpful? It is an oxymoron. It is a delusion of mental health professionals that “medication” (let alone “medication” against our will) could possibly be beneficial.

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    • Perhaps the problem is that addiction isn’t “mental illness” but is simply that, addiction, and requires a different approach in order to be healed. I speak from experience as someone who was detained under the mental health act 4 times in total and forced to take a number of different psychiatric drugs against my will, which ultimately only served to drive me further into addiction. And once the illicit (as well as pharmaceutical) drugs were removed from the equation none of their “mental illness” diagnoses (bipolar, OCD, PTSD) stuck and I didn’t need any lifelong poisoning with antipsychotics.
      Instead of being locked up and treated like a criminal under the “mental health act” whilst simultaneously being told “it’s not your fault you’re like this it’s genetic and incurable”… I wish I had been sent to an actual prison and been treated like an actual criminal, who funnily enough (at least in my country) are often offered the option of going to a drug REHAB FACILITY. Which was what I needed, not copious quantities of olanzapine, quetiapine, zuclopenthixol and all the other crap they fed me.
      I’m serious about the prison part, I now work in one, years recovered from my addiction and abuse at the hands of the “mental health” system.

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  2. “An evidence-based approach clearly shows that the reliance on detention, force and coercion over the past two decades has not led to better outcomes.”

    including the forced and coerced drugging of all, during the Covid debacle.

    Let’s be realistic, big Pharma / psychiatry / psychology freaked out, and acted like three year olds, because their cash cow, psychiatry, had been scientifically debunked as scientific fraud. So “fierce Pharma” needed to look for a new “cash cow.”

    So they created the forced and coerced drugging of all, via Covid, which resulted in a societal disaster.

    The right of any doctor to force drug anyone, should be made illegal, worldwide.

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