For as long as I can remember, COTTonLINE has harped on the issue of leaving the insane and the addicted to their own devices. That is, mostly to living on the street as homeless.
As we’ve repeatedly noted, there is plenty of blame to go around. Liberals fear infringing on people’s freedom to live however in hell they choose. Conservatives dislike spending billions warehousing the insane and addicted. And Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’ Nest didn’t help.
As it stands, if you are insane or addicted and able to avoid arrest for a big felony, you end up living rough. If you can manage to commit an egregious felony and get caught, you may be imprisoned or be released as too addled to stand trial. Homelessness or prison, those are the choices. No long-term mental hospitals
Today brings two excellent articles relevant to this issue. This one is particularly good, even if it does catch the otherwise-execrable Governor Newsom doing something helpful. And this one is about an example now in the news.
We need involuntary incarceration for those addled and addicted who can’t manage to live independently. We also need safeguards against abuse and misuse plus treatment for whatever their problem is. It will cost billions.
Absent the above, there is also Canada’s indirect partial solution via MAID (medical assistance in dying), which has become quite popular.
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Afterthought: It is worth remembering that the mentally ill quite often dislike the admittedly imperfect meds which assist in managing their behavior. They say they feel “dull” or “flat” while taking them. They prefer the oblivion or the juiced highs of street drugs.
Many of their conditions are essentially “untreatable” in the sense of a cure, given today’s knowledge and technology. I don’t see why the incarcerated shouldn’t have access “inside” to whatever drugs make them feel good - speed, heroin, cocaine, you name it.
If the state became their ‘dealer’ they’d not try to escape. People might commit themselves voluntarily, knowing it was a one-way street. Imagine being a “Dr. Feelgood” in one of these asylums, helping people find the mix of drugs that left them in bliss.
Seems like the plot for a noir science fiction novel or film, doesn’t it? Soylent Green had a hint of this in its MAID ending.
