Public Policy

Even when (the epidemic is) finished, society is usually left with a continuing problem, just one that isn’t growing the way it was.

A piece of business worth $9 billion a year is precious to Big Pharma.

If by chance the patient didn’t fit the physician’s preconception of an addict– he or she was a respected member of the community, for example– then the doctor often fell into the enabler role.

Problem is, we in the general public don’t like being made to wait. We want answers, and we want them to be final.

The system that was supposed to help them was unwittingly undermining their recovery.

As one longtime Capitol Hill figure told me, “you can get anything accomplished as long as you’re willing to share the credit– especially with those who don’t deserve it.”

Nobody knows exactly how extensive off label prescribing is, but estimates range from a fifth of all prescriptions written in the US, to a third if we just look at psychiatric meds.

In some communities, where resources are few, the only way to access residential services is by getting arrested and sent by the Court.

It makes perfect sense to do something that’s been shown to be effective at limiting one very important adverse consequence to the individual and society

It makes little sense to criticize our “system” of mental health care, when it’s only a system in some places. In the national sense, it isn’t a system at all, and never has been.