Tahitiii wrote:
What would stop the US, Australia, Canada and everyone else from going the same way?
Mental health laws in the US are administered at the state level. Even in California, a state that is quick to trample on personal liberties, any psychiatrist, psychologist, any advanced practice psychiatric nurse, any cop, and I think any social worker can have someone committed for a 72 hour evaluation. Then, it requires a psychiatrist and a psychologist to petition a judge to commit someone after that for up to 2 weeks if they want to keep them longer than 72 hours, and the psychiatrist and psychologist have to agree again if they want to keep them up to another 2 weeks or up to a month depending in what they petition the judge for. They cannot be forcibly medicated in the US without a seperate court hearing to determine whether you are competent to make your own medical decisions or not. The way it works now. Little would change in California even if such laws passed. Since mental health professionals don't treat swine flu, there wouldn't be any new additional demand on their services.
_________________
"Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars."
- Unknown
"A fear of weapons is a sign of ret*d sexual and emotional maturity."
-Sigmund Freud