On August 5, the Green Party of California—with 93,000 voters registered in the state and high visibility among people disillusioned with the two party system and the Democrat-led steady decline of the state—endorsed the abolition of forced psychiatric treatment.
In a public statement, the Party wrote,
The Green Party of California hereby endorses the call to abolish all involuntary psychiatric and psychological interventions, including forced hospitalizations, forced drugging, and related coercive practices. We stand with those who have experienced trauma through forced treatment and recognize that compassionate, evidence-based alternatives exist that honor human dignity and autonomy.
This endorsement aligns directly with GPCA’s Ten Key Values and platform commitments. Our principle that “all human beings must be allowed a say in decisions that affect their lives; no one should be subject to the will of another” is fundamentally incompatible with forced psychiatric interventions. Our commitment to non-violence demands that we reject institutional violence disguised as treatment.
The “Abolish Forced Psychiatry” statement calls for ending all legal and social discrimination based on psychiatric diagnostic labeling, establishing non-coercive supports including community mutual aid and peer support, rejecting the criminalization of social problems and disability, and addressing the root causes of emotional distress through ending poverty and promoting disability justice.
Recent developments like California’s Proposition 1, which provides no alternatives to forced treatment while deceptively promising housing solutions, demonstrate the urgent need for this advocacy. Despite opposition from Disability Rights California, Cal Voices, Mental Health America of California, and the ACLU, Prop 1 passed, highlighting how authoritarian approaches continue to be promoted over evidence-based alternatives.
The psychiatric survivor movement has long challenged the false choice between “force or neglect.” Compassionate, voluntary support systems can effectively meet people’s needs during emotional crises and have a proven evidence base. The voices of people harmed by forced psychiatric intervention are, too often drowned out by the pharmaceutical industry narratives that dominate our media, and these voices deserve to be heard and honored.
The Green Party of California recognizes that true social justice requires addressing the root causes of emotional distress – poverty, social isolation, discrimination, and systemic oppression – rather than responding with force and coercion. We call for investment in community-based supports, peer-run services, and voluntary alternatives that treat people with dignity and respect their fundamental human rights.
We urge other organizations and individuals to join this growing movement by signing onto the “Abolish Forced Psychiatry” statement at www.abolishforcedpsychiatry.org.
The Abolish Forced Psychiatry statement is a sign-on effort to gather endorsements for an end to forced psychiatric treatment world-wide. The statement was launched in July 2025 and has been gathering individual and organizational endorsers, including International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis-US (ISPS-US), Institute for the Development of the Human Arts (IDHA), Project LETS, Mindfreedom, Tennessee Mental Health Consumers’ Association, Wildflower Alliance, Center for Disability Rights, and Pennsylvania Mental Health Consumers Association. You and your organization are invited to endorse as well.
The statement reads:
Abolish all involuntary psychiatric and psychological interventions, including forced hospitalizations, forced drugging, and related coercive practices.
End all legal and social discrimination based on psychiatric or psychological diagnostic labeling or actual or perceived disability.
Establish non-coercive supports and services for people when they experience emotional distress or life crises, including, but not limited to community mutual aid, peer support, voluntary crisis sanctuaries, as well as the right to voluntarily access all mainstream services and affordable housing free of coercion.
Reject the criminalization and forced psychiatrization of social problems, difference, disability, and struggles for survival.
Recognize the social and economic causes of emotional distress, and work to meet everyone’s basic needs in the community, including ending poverty, overcoming social exclusion, and promoting disability justice, human rights, and carceral system transformation.
A recent forced treatment study brings home the point made widely in the research literature for years—forcing people into psychiatric treatment doesn’t work, and does harm instead.
The Green Party of California endorsement is especially significant because it represents a cross-issue connection and broadening the base of awareness around forced treatment and abolition. While some psychiatric human rights strategies emphasize public education and asking mental health agencies to change their views (the “appeal to reason, seat at the table, and begging for grants” approach), cross-issue connections use a different tactic: building strength through numbers and aiming to force change through the pressure of sheer political power. Community activists have long known the folly of trying to enact change through appealing to the powerful. As Frederick Douglass noted in his famous quote, “”Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Decades of mental health activism has failed to achieve even the most basic goals of the rights movement, as the situation for mental patients has grown worse and the net of drugging and dehumanization gotten bigger. The Abolish Forced Psychiatry statement is a step in the direction towards a new strategy. (Organizations already working for abolition may not wish to sign this specific statement, though we’d like them to—the point is for everyone in favor of abolition to be public, on the record, and uncompromising.)
The Abolish Forced Psychiatry statement is also a strategy against the forces of cooptation that have played a key role in movement failures. Getting leadership on record against forced treatment will help identify false leaders who owe allegiance more to their funding and career than they do the basic principles of the patients rights movement. The next time you interact with someone who makes money off mental health reform politics, ask if they are against forced treatment and if so will they sign on to the abolition statement. True colors might be revealed.
