"Needles on Wheels"? Involuntary Outpatient Commitment & Psychiatric Medications

The 1998 Pulitzer Prize Finalist and author of "Mad in America" and "Anatomy of an Epidemic" discusses the significance of the newly-funded Involuntary Outpatient Commitment passed by Congress and signed by Obama in early April.

The provision was slipped into the bill by Forced Drugging fans and rubber-stamped with little or no debate.

IOC is already authorized under Laura's Law in California, but has not generally been implemented because of funding limitations and other restrictions. Standards for authorizing forced treatment are significantly relaxed giving psychiatrists much great power to coerce "treatment".

Whitaker's take on discusses forced drugging and Involuntary Outpatient Commitment at http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/05/e-fuller-torreys-review-of-anatomy-of-an-epidemic-what-does-it-reveal-about-the-rationale-for-forced-treatment/ ,

Whitaker has previously tracked the rise in diagnosis of mental illness in the U.S. and the proliferation of drugs to medicate various conditions.

For extensive and updated info go to http://www.madinamerica.com/ .

Some brief comments are at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/02/18522199.php .


Prior Interviews with Whitaker on Bathrobespierre's Broadsides:

http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb110310.mp3 (26 minutes into the audio file)

http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb080810.mp3 (2 hours and 33 minutes into the audio file)into the file)

Another prior interview on Free Radio Santa Cruz is archived at http://www.radiolibre.org/brb/brb070527.mp3 [Download it and scroll past the first 1/3 of the show to find the full 2 1/2 hour interview and subsequent discussion]

Material around this last interview and some written material can be found at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/05/22/18419687.php

A prior Whitaker interview from 2004 is at http://www.huffsantacruz.org/brb/brb090504.mp3 .

Two lengthy and interesting earlier interviews with Whitaker from Street Spirit newspaper:
http://www.thestreetspirit.org/August2005/madinterview.htm