psychrights
                   Law Project for
              Psychiatric Rights

Newsletter
January 28, 2004

Hi Everyone,

You are receiving this e-Newsletter because we believe you will be interested in the work of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) in fighting forced psychiatric drugging and exposing in court the faulty science behind the current reliance on psychiatric medication. If that is incorrect please just let us know by e-mail to jim@psychrights.org and we won't send you any more.  

Forthcoming Informed Consent Lawsuit

The most important news and the reason why we are inaugurating the Newsletter at this time is to let you know the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) is preparing to file a lawsuit against the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) for failure to obtain informed consent prior to administering psychiatric medications (API is the only state-run psychiatric hospital in Alaska).  It is illegal to prescribe psychiatric medications without obtaining informed consent, this law is regularly violated, and the lawsuit is being filed to stop this illegality. The Draft Complaint to commence the lawsuit is available for review at http://psychrights.org/States/Alaska/CaseTwo/draftInformedConsentComplaint.htm and there is a description of this lawsuit at http://psychrights.org/States/Alaska/CaseTwo.htm. The lawsuit is pretty much ready to go and will be filed as soon as the right plaintiff (client) is identified.

At the legal level, in terms of remedy, the objective is to enjoin (prohibit) API from prescribing these medications to anyone who hasn't already taken them because its psychiatrists fail, time after time, to disclose the real facts about the medications, thus convincing people to take them based on false and/or incomplete information.

The larger remedial objective is to move the mental health system to offer people the opportunity of getting through their psychotic break(s) without or with minimal psychotropic medication and also for people wanting to get off the drugs to be given a real chance to do so.  It is important for us to emphasize we are not against people making an informed decision to take these medications.  We know some people find them helpful and other people who have found them impossible to get off .  We have no problem with them getting the medications.  We do, however, object to people being misled into taking them with the horrific consequences that follow.  

The third objective, and in some ways, maybe even the most important, is to expose, through the litigation process, the truth about these medications and the lies that are being told about them by the pharmaceutical companies and their psychiatrist co-conspirators.  In a lawsuit, both sides can present their evidence and the court, which is at least theoretically a neutral fact-finder, will make a decision about the truth (or at least what is necessary to satisfy the informed consent requirement).  In other words, this is also a lawsuit to put these drugs on trial. 

Dr. Loren Mosher, former Chief of Schizophrenia Research at the National Institute of Mental Health has agreed to testify on our behalf, as has Dr. Grace Jackson and one other very knowledgeable psychiatrist.   Dr. David Cohen, co-author with Dr. Peter R. Breggin of the seminal book "Your Drug May be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications," has agreed to be our consulting expert to help us put the case together.

I am donating my time as an attorney to the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights pro bono, but there will be a lot of out of pocket expenses involved, mainly expert witness fees and deposition costs.   We need your help to defray these costs.  We would like to have at least $50,000, and $200,000 would be a more comfortable budget to pay these sorts of out-of-pocket costs.  We have $10,000 for this so far and we will very much appreciate your donations in support of this effort.   Checks can be made payable and mailed to:

Law Project for Psychiatric Rights

406 G Street, Suite 206

Anchorage, AK 99501. 

• A summary of our first year activities can be found at http://psychrights.org/about/1styear.htm
• "Unwarranted Court Ordered Medication: A Call to Action" describes PsychRights' work plan, including throughout the United States and can be found at http://psychrights.org/calltoaction.htm.
• Psychiatry: Force of Law at http://psychrights.org/force_of_law.htm is a thumbnail description of the legal principles surrounding Involuntary Commitment and Forced Drugging as well as a description of the Corruption in the Courts, which characterize this area of the law.
• Scientific Research By Topic  at http://psychrights.org/Research/Digest/Researchbytopic.htm is where we post the actual studies that debunk the pharmaceutical/psychiatric industry's misinformation about the drugs and mental illness.
  • AntiDepressants
  • Neuroleptics and Chronic Mental Illness (research cited in Mad in America).
  • Neuroleptics
    • Failure to Medicate Does Not Harm Patients
  • ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity "Disorder")
  • Effective Non-Drug Treatments
    • Consumer Operated Support Programs
  • Making Decisions for Presumed Incompetents
    • Forced Treatment
  • Mental Illness is Not a Brain Disease.
  • Psychiatric Drugs
  • Science for Sale
• The Myers v. API Forced Medication Case is now before the Alaska Supreme Court with oral argument scheduled for February 11th.    The briefs and other documents in that case are posted at http://psychrights.org/States/Alaska/CaseOne.htm.