Special Opinion to the Mirror by Paul Plante
This past weekend, some 478.2 miles roughly north of Cape Charles, Virginia, in the tiny town of Poestenkill, New York, just to the east of the state capital of Albany, where Progressive Democrat and presumptive Democrat presidential front-runner in the 2020 presidential elections Young Andy Cuomo holds court, and this is according to eye-witness accounts, the New York State Police were seen scouring an otherwise quiet residential area for a fugitive from the law.
The person they were hunting was not some terrorist, or raper, or thief, or escaped murderer.
To the contrary, the subject of the dragnet or manhunt was a young woman who refuses to take psych drugs that make her feel suicidal.
Yes, people, you are reading that right – in New York state, according the law as written, a doctor can demand that someone be put on psych drugs, and if that person won’t take the drugs, the doctor can then issue an order to the New York State Police to have them pick the person up, and then deliver that person to the psych unit of a local hospital, in this case, the Samaritan Hospital in Troy, New York.
This is very reminiscent of a similar scheme, or scam, that was the subject of an Association Of Certified Fraud Examiners article entitled “Bribery on the Bench: A Look at Judicial Corruption” by Jordan Underhill, J.D., Research Specialist, ACFE, as follows:
In September 2009, a federal grand jury in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, returned a 48-count indictment against two judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan.
The indictment included conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government, conspiracy to commit tax fraud, honest services fraud, racketeering, bribery, money laundering and extortion.
The basis of these charges was an alleged kickback arrangement with private prison operators that netted the Luzerne County judges more than $2.6 million over at least seven years.
Conahan colluded with private prison operators to shut down the county-run juvenile detention center in favor of privately run facilities and Ciavarella did much of the sentencing that filled the new detention centers’ beds.
The private juvenile detention centers received state funding proportionate to the number of offenders that they housed; thus, they were incentivized to house as many individuals as feasible.
The judges deliberately funneled juvenile offenders (who were often advised by the judges that they did not need legal counsel) into the private juvenile detention centers, regardless of whether the charges merited the punishment.
One 16-year-old was arrested for gesturing with her middle finger at a police officer responding to a custody dispute involving her parents and sister.
Ciavarella sentenced her to six months in juvenile detention.
A 14-year-old was sentenced to three months in juvenile detention for mocking a school principal on Myspace.
At least 5,000 juveniles appeared before Ciavarella in the five years preceding the discovery of the scheme, many unrepresented and severely punished for minor infractions.
The FBI and IRS began investigating the judges after another Luzerne County judge, Anne H. Lokuta, accused Conahan of conspiring to remove her from the bench (she was, in fact, removed from the bench in November 2008).
Lokuta aided federal investigators in discovering the kickback arrangement.
After the full extent of the scheme was discovered, hundreds of juvenile adjudications were ordered overturned.
The so-called “kids-for-cash” scheme is an alarming reminder of the amount of damage that a dishonest judiciary can cause.
The scheme not only defrauded taxpayers of millions of dollars, but also violated the constitutional rights and severely disrupted the lives of thousands of children.
End quotes
In writing this, it is that last sentence I am focused on, because in New York State, once a doctor signs that order, essentially, one’s civil rights disappear, and I can say that with authority, because I had that happen to me in New York State, where the Mental Hygiene Law is used by the corrupt politicians as an offensive retaliatory weapon.
The law in question here, and I am speaking of this in the Cape Charles Mirror, one, because this is the only publication I know of in America where discussions of this nature can take place, and more importantly, because this law will be held up as a national model by the Democrats in these coming months, especially if they can win control of the congress in this year’s mid-term elections, is known as “Kendra’s Law.”
Hence, the people of America who do not live in New York State, and who are unaware of the ramifications of this law, as I was, up until just recently, should have the opportunity to be made aware of this law, and what it might mean to our future as a nation, especially when we are in the midst of a drug epidemic and a spate of teen violence that may well be linked to the side effects of these psych drugs being forced on the children and youth in America.
As to the laws of the state of New York as they relate to people accused of being mentally ill and dangerous becoming a model for the nation, I would refer the interested reader who wishes to educate themselves on this subject to a February 26, 2018 Press Release by New York’s Progressive democrat governor Young Andy Cuomo entitled “Governor Cuomo Announces Massachusetts, Delaware and Puerto Rico Join ‘States for Gun Safety’ Coalition to Combat the Gun Violence Epidemic,” where we are informed as follows:
Multi-State Coalition Now Represents Over 35 Million Americans
Massachusetts, Delaware and Puerto Rico Enter Agreement to Create Multi-State Database to Supplement Ineffective Federal NICS System
Multi-State Coalition Will Share Information, Trace and Intercept Flow of Out-of-State Guns, and Establish Nation’s First Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium
New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo today announced Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Delaware Governor John Carney and Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló are joining the “States for Gun Safety” coalition — a multi-state partnership launched this month to combat the gun violence epidemic.
With the addition of these new members, the coalition of states now represents over 35 million Americans and will take action to stop gun-related violence in the face of continued federal inaction.
Massachusetts, Delaware and Puerto Rico will join a multi-state task force to trace and intercept illegal guns in the region.
The new members will work in cooperation with other partner states to enhance intelligence gathering, information sharing, and response efforts related to gun violence.
Participating states will leverage collective investigative resources in order to determine comprehensive, coordinated plans for gun violence responses.
Governor Cuomo said, “It’s time for the horrifying mass shootings that have plagued this country for far too long to spur real action and real policy changes.”
“Our states collectively already have better gun safety laws than the federal government, and by working together to share information and bolster enforcement, we will keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals and better protect our communities.”
“If the federal government refuses to act, we will work together to enact the important reforms families deserve, and I welcome these new states to our coalition.”
End quotes
There is our future as a nation and a free people shaping up there, people, and with respect to this manhunt going on in the Town of Poestenkill in New York State for a young woman who refuses to take psych meds that make her feel suicidal, it is not a pleasant one to contemplate.
In that same Press Release, Governor Malloy of Connecticut said, “The addition of Massachusetts, Delaware, and Puerto Rico to this multi-state coalition is an important step toward regional cooperation to prevent gun violence, and I applaud these governors for being a partner in this endeavor.”
“The massacre in Parkland – like the massacres in Las Vegas, Orlando, San Bernardino, Umpqua, Aurora, Sandy Hook, and countless others – are a tragic reminder of the urgent need to tear down political barriers and work together to make our communities, schools, and public places safer.”
“That said, while we can make a significant difference, we need real and substantive action from Congress if we are serious about ending this epidemic of gun violence.”
“It shouldn’t need saying, but the lives of children are far more important than any powerful special interest.”
“It’s time to act.”
End quotes
Yes, let’s protect our children from guns and the NRA, but are the lives of children more important than the powerful special interest known as BIG PHARM?
Not in New York State, they are not.
In New York State, through this “Kendra’s Law,” our children have literally been rendered as property of BIG PHARM, losing their right to refuse medication, as a result.
As to how this “Kendra’s Law” came into being in the first place, according to an official publication of the New York State Office of Mental Health titled “Kendra’s Law: Final Report on the Status of Assisted Outpatient Treatment – Appendix 2” by Keith J. Brennan, Esq., Assistant Counsel, New York State Office of Mental Health, on January 3, 1999, an event occurred which galvanized the mental health community, and served as a catalyst for an effort to identify and address the needs of the small population of persons who respond well to treatment when hospitalized, but who have trouble maintaining their recovery once back in the community.
On that date, Andrew Goldstein, a man with a history of mental illness and hospitalizations, pushed Kendra Webdale onto the subway tracks in a tunnel beneath the streets of Manhattan.
Ms. Webdale lost her life as a result.
What followed was a bi-partisan effort, led by Governor George Pataki, to create a resource delivery system for this population, who, in view of their treatment history and present circumstances, are likely to have difficulty living safely in the community.
End quotes
In the case of this young woman in Poestenkill who is now a fugitive from the law because she refuses to take psych drugs that have literally destroyed her young life, she was living safely in the community.
But that makes absolutely no difference whatsoever, anymore.
Getting back to “Kendra’s Law,” on August 9, 1999, Governor Pataki signed Kendra’s Law, creating a statutory framework for court-ordered assisted outpatient treatment (“AOT”), to ensure that individuals with mental illness, and a history of hospitalizations or violence, participate in community-based services appropriate to their needs.
The law became effective in November of 1999.
Since that time, 4,245 court orders have been issued for AOT statewide, together with 2,559 renewal orders.
The majority of orders and renewals have been issued in New York City.
End quotes
And now that the money-making potential of this law has been discovered outside of New York City, the abuse of this law has spread to upstate New York, all the way into small rural communities like this Poestenkill, where these manhunts for this young woman ae taking place.
When I first heard of this, I was not a sceptic; I was totally unbelieving.
This is monstrous, I said.
This is something you would expect to hear about happening in Nazi Germany, or Stalinist Russia.
This **** doesn’t happen here, I said, but I was wrong – it certainly does.
And a disturbing aspect of this law is as follows:
New York Mental Hygiene Law § 9.59
Immunity from liability
(a) Notwithstanding any inconsistent provision of any general, special or local law, an ambulance service as defined by subdivision two of section three thousand one of the public health law and any member thereof who is an emergency medical technician or an advanced emergency medical technician transporting a person to a hospital as authorized by this article, any peace officers, when acting pursuant to their special duties, and any police officers, who are members of an authorized police department or force or of a sheriff’s department, who are taking into custody and transporting a person to a hospital as authorized by this article, shall not be liable for damages for injuries alleged to have been sustained by such person or for the death of such person alleged to have occurred by reason of an act or omission unless it is established that such injuries or such death was caused by gross negligence on the part of such emergency medical technician, advanced emergency medical technician, peace officer or police officer.
End quotes
Who in their right mind can take comfort from that, especially in the case of the apprehension of a young person because they refuse to take drugs that are hurting them and destroying their lives?
In capturing this young woman, and surely she will eventually be captured, the police are given license to treat her roughly, with immunity from the law, while the burden would be on her to prove that gross negligence was involved, which is ridiculous.
And what kind of message does that send to a community already afraid of police violence?
As to Constitutional Challenges, the Office of Mental Health states as follows:
Kendra’a Law was signed into law by Governor George Pataki on August 9, 1999, and became effective on November 8, 1999.
Even before the law was implemented, there emerged a focused debate concerning the issue of whether the law achieved its goal of creating a mechanism to insure that individuals who met the statutory criteria remained treatment compliant while in the community, in a way that was consistent with the Constitutional rights of those individuals.
On one side of the debate, proponents of the law recognized the numerous procedural aspects of the law which were included specifically to meet constitutional standards, many of which were deliberately modeled after other provisions of the Mental Hygiene Law, which themselves had survived prior judicial scrutiny and had been found to be constitutional.
The supporters of the law argued that any compulsion occasioned by the law was justified by the law’s important objective of helping individuals with a history of treatment non-compliance resulting in violent acts and/or repeated hospitalization, to live safely in the community.
On the other side of the debate, opponents of the law primarily relied upon prior judicial decisions which found that forcible medication over objection required a finding of incapacity.
The opponents of the law read into these decisions a much broader proscription of any measures which might influence an individual’s decision to comply with treatment, even when those measures fall far short of forcible medication over objection.
This theoretical debate would not be resolved without judicial intervention and inevitably found its way into the courts.
In In re Urcuyo, the first court challenge to the constitutionality of Kendra’s Law, the Mental Hygiene Legal Service (“MHLS”) moved for dismissals on behalf of two respondents to Kendra’s Law petitions in Supreme Court, Kings County.
Respondents argued that Kendra’s Law violated the due process and equal protection guarantees of the New York State and the United States Constitutions because the statute did not require a judicial finding of incapacity prior to the issuance of an order requiring the respondent to comply with the AOT treatment plan.
The court rejected all of respondents’ arguments, and held that the statute was in each respect constitutional.
End quotes
And there, people, is where the nightmare always begins – with a politically-appointed judge determining where our constitutional rights begin and end.
With that law having been deemed constitutional, all challenged to the abuse of that law have become that much harder, because in reality, those merely accused of being mentally ill and dangerous have their constitutional rights stripped from them.
They become societal objects, no longer citizens with rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Is this still America?
Or have we become something else?
The candid world would like to know.
About the Author
As you try to assimilate exactly what is going on here, start by focusing in on these words from the February 26, 2018 Press Release by New York’s Progressive democrat governor Young Andy Cuomo above here entitled “Governor Cuomo Announces Massachusetts, Delaware and Puerto Rico Join ‘States for Gun Safety’ Coalition to Combat the Gun Violence Epidemic,” where we are informed as follows:
New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy and Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo today announced Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Delaware Governor John Carney and Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló are joining the “States for Gun Safety” coalition — a multi-state partnership launched this month to combat the gun violence epidemic.
With the addition of these new members, the coalition of states now represents over 35 million Americans and will take action to stop gun-related violence in the face of continued federal inaction.
end quotes
And then, tighten your focus to these specific words, to wit: “the coalition of states now represents over 35 million Americans . . .”
In the United States of America today, is that true, that we are “represented” by these state governors who are going to “share intelligence” about us with each other?
Are we then their possessions, to do with as they will?
When did that happen, that state governors now “represent” us, as if we were their exclusive property, something like slaves or serfs?
According to ARTICLE IV of the New York State Constitution, entitled “Executive,” in §3, it states in clear and unequivocal regulatory language that ” The governor shall be commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of the state.”
“The governor shall have power to convene the legislature, or the senate only, on extraordinary occasions.”
“At extraordinary sessions convened pursuant to the provisions of this section no subject shall be acted upon, except such as the governor may recommend for consideration.”
“The governor shall communicate by message to the legislature at every session the condition of the state, and recommend such matters to it as he or she shall judge expedient.”
“The governor shall expedite all such measures as may be resolved upon by the legislature, and shall take care that the laws are faithfully executed.”
end quotes
Nowhere in there does it say that Progressive Democrat and presumptive Democrat party presidential front-runner Young Andy Cuomo “represents” the people of New York, especially the people of upstate New York who are stuck with the likes of Young Andy, because of the sheer voting power of New York City, which far outweighs the rest of the state in terms of population and political preferences.
And yet, he has taken that power on to himself.
Why?
Because he can.
Interestingly, on Friday, 27 April 2018, two days after I wrote this article, the family of this young woman received a phone call telling them that all of a sudden, the order issued by a state judge for this young woman’s capture by the New York State Police was rescinded, which is something that just does not happen up here, a judge admitting to a serious mistake like that, so if that is related to the power of the press in this country, especially the Cape Charles Mirror, where punches are not pulled, then I am all for it.
For that aggrieved family, that was a literal miracle, however many years late in was coming in this case to put an end to the nightmare, assuming that for this family, it is finally over, and that brings me back to the February 26, 2018 Press Release by New York’s Progressive democrat governor Young Andy Cuomo entitled “Governor Cuomo Announces Massachusetts, Delaware and Puerto Rico Join ‘States for Gun Safety’ Coalition to Combat the Gun Violence Epidemic,” where we are informed as follows:
Massachusetts, Delaware and Puerto Rico Enter Agreement to Create Multi-State Database to Supplement Ineffective Federal NICS System
end quote
Here I would like to draw the focus to that statement about the “Multi-State Database” to supplement what governor Cuomo is calling the “Ineffective Federal NICS System.”
What is the federal NICS system, anyway, and what purpose will this multi-state database actually serve, outside of some partisan political purpose of Progressive Democrat Young Andy Cuomo?
Let’s take a look by going to the FBI site on the subject where we learn as follows:
National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS)
The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, is all about saving lives and protecting people from harm—by not letting guns fall into the wrong hands.
end quotes
Now, there is a key statement – “by not letting guns fall into the wrong hands.”
Now, that is a powerful statement about “the wrong hands.”
And the NICS database is what Young Andy Cuomo is calling “ineffective.”
Why?
And how?
No details forthcoming.
What will his database do that this one is ineffective at, especially when it comes to defining whose hands guns should not be in.
Getting back to the FBI site, we have this further on the NICS Young Andy Cuomo says is ineffective for his purposes in reducing gun violence:
Mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 and launched by the FBI on November 30, 1998, NICS is used by Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs) to instantly determine whether a prospective buyer is eligible to buy firearms.
Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn’t otherwise ineligible to make a purchase.
More than 230 million such checks have been made, leading to more than 1.3 million denials.
end quotes
How Young Andy figures that that is somehow ineffective eludes me, but that is because we don’t know Young Andy’s underlying agenda here.
We only know that it is political, and that it revolves around the question of who is otherwise ineligible to make a purchase of a firearm, or to own one, which is the hot button issue of the day after this Parkland, Florida school shooting, as we can clearly see from this Florida Sun Sentinel article “After Parkland, number of children hospitalized for mental health care jumped” by Megan O’Matz on 28 April 2018, to wit:
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – On the day after the Parkland school shooting, children across Florida were brought to hospitals by police or other authorities to undergo emergency mental health exams – an unusually high number that kept climbing in the days that followed.
On Feb. 27, about two weeks after the Valentine’s Day massacre, 195 children across Florida were taken for psychiatric observation under the state’s Baker Act.
The number is the highest single daily total in nearly five years, according to figures obtained by the Sun Sentinel.
The data suggest that not only were children upset and fearful after the highly publicized shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, but schools and other professionals were more vigilant in hospitalizing children who might pose a threat to others – like school shooter Nikolas Cruz, experts said.
School and mental health professionals never sent Cruz for emergency psychiatric treatment despite their longstanding knowledge of his troubled mental health.
Had he ever been committed for long-term treatment, he would have been banned from buying guns under federal law.
end quotes
And with that last sentence posted, here for the moment I will rest, with the thought that despite that arrest order for this young woman in question up here being rescinded, her name has not been withdrawn from that database of Young Andy’s or the NCIS, because that is not automatic, at all, and can now follow her for life, unless she has the wherewithal to get that database cleansed.
In one of those seemingly weird cosmic confluences of events that seem to swirl around the Cape Charles Mirror, likely as a result of the gravitational field of that huge meteorite the Cape Charles Mirror sits over, which field would tend to warp the flow of Time’s Arrow as it passes over Cape Charles in ways that would have delighted Albert Einstein, who famously said, “God does not play dice,” thus perhaps bestowing some divine purpose onto the existence of the Cape Charles Mirror on earth in these times when it is so desperately needed by a society unraveling at an alarming rate, on Sunday, April 29, 2018, the same day this thread on the young woman in Poestenkill, New York trying to get herself clear of a system obviously gone amuck that was forcing drugs on her that made her feel suicidal, to get her own life back on some kind of stable track was posted in the Cape Charles Mirror, the upstate New York Hearst publication the Albany Times Union ran an article on heroin addiction and deaths in this same town of Poestenkill on its front page entitled “Her son needed help. It never came. – As overdose deaths climb, experts say time is now to offer better, quicker treatment” by Bethany Bump, which started out as follows:
Poestenkill – Julie Roy had just dropped her son off at his grandparents when, not an hour later, she got the call.
“Julie, you need to come, it’s really bad,” the young man’s grandmother said into the phone.
“He’s not breathing.”
Next thing Roy knew, she was in her car, speeding across town with her four-ways on, her heart racing as she negotiated the winding roads and rolling hills from Poestenkill to Sand Lake, her mind desperate to quiet the clamor from her subconscious, which was shouting a truth she could not yet face.
When she arrived, William John Timber was dead on the floor of his grandparents’ bathroom, a needle in his arm.
He was 26.
end quotes
And that is so common a front-page news story in Times Union that people don’t pay attention anymore – because it is so common, like hearing about who just got killed in Viet Nam back when.
Getting back to that story, which is about the times we all live in, even those of you down here in Cape Charles, the story continues as follows:
An hour earlier, on that September day in 2015, he had hugged his mother goodbye and told her “I love you” — twice — she’ll proudly recall more than two years later.
“I was lucky, in a way,” she said.
Lucky, because so many others around her had gotten far less.
Her son’s friends, a cousin, young adults she remembered tromping through her house as kids — they were all dying from this stupid drug she once believed was just a city thing (“We don’t have that here,” she told her middle child, when he first told her Will was using heroin).
end quote
But as this story about this Nightmare in that same town of Poestenkill shows us, of course they have it there, it is not just a city thing, and the question is why?
Getting back to that story, which is the story of a nation in some kind of serious trouble, it continues as follows:
If Will ever worried he would be next, that overdose would claim him just like it claimed his friends, he didn’t say so out loud.
“I still think he felt he was invincible because he always said, ‘Don’t worry, mom, I’m not gonna die.’:
“‘It’s not gonna happen to me.”
end quotes
But it obviously did, and again, one must wonder why.
What is wrong with American society today that its young people, and not so young, are killing themselves with drugs?
That Times Union story then continued under this heading “As deaths soar, barriers to treatment remain,” as follows:
Nearly 64,000 Americans died of a drug overdose in 2016, and roughly 40,000 of them overdosed on opioids — prescription painkillers, heroin, fentanyl and synthetic drugs.
It’s an epidemic that’s not slowing down, and experts and advocates in the field say it’s time to stop putting up roadblocks whenever someone tries to seek help for their addiction.
end quotes
Now, in the face of the original post in this thread, where the state police power was forcing a young woman to take drugs she knew were harming her, that is quite a loaded statement there about “experts and advocates in the field” saying it’s time to stop putting up roadblocks whenever someone tries to seek help for their addiction, when it was a bent and twisted and broken system itself that was forcing the addiction on this young woman and setting the New York State Police on her when she tried to break the addiction by quitting the pills.
And getting back to the Times Union article:
Just one in 10 Americans suffering from addiction receive treatment, according to a 2016 surgeon general’s report.
(1 in 2 New Yorkers who received pain scripts weren’t warned of their dangers, poll finds)
It’s no wonder, addiction experts say.
Drug users encounter serious stigma when they come out of the shadows, far more than individuals with more “acceptable” addictions like alcoholism.
And yet, research indicates that four out of every five new heroin users began by abusing prescription painkillers, which in many cases were legally prescribed by doctors who did not warn of their addictive qualities.
end quotes
And that last sentence brings us right to the heart of this matter, and that is the role doctors themselves, like the doctor who got that arrest order for this young woman in Poestenkill so the doctor could keep forcing pills onto her, play in causing this drug epidemic, with immunity from the law as they do so.
Getting back to the Times Union:
“There definitely remains a perception that folks who struggle with addiction — that it’s somehow a character flaw and moral failing, and more about willpower than what it actually is, which is a disease that should be responded to like any other medical condition,” said Melissa Weimer, medical director of St. Peter’s Health Partners Addiction Recovery Center.
More providers are coming around to that perspective, she said, but addicts continue to encounter resistance when they seek help — from emergency rooms, treatment providers, insurance companies and doctors.
While work has been done in New York to increase treatment services, eliminate insurance barriers and expand access to withdrawal medication, much remains to be done if the state is serious about curbing its rising death toll, experts say.
end quotes
Yes, they should stop forcing psych drugs on children in this state to make them “normal.”
Some years ago, the grandchildren of a friend of mine came to visit, and I had an opportunity to observe the children when they came.
Both seemed normal to me, if such a term can be applied to children across the board, but they were neat, they were polite, they were well-behaved, which is how I judged them.
The next I knew, the kids were back in Florida, and the boy, about ten, I would say, was “diagnosed” with one of the many alphabet conditions that seem to plague America’s children today, and was put on psych drugs, as a result.
Years went by, and the next I knew that same kid was in prison for dealing drugs.
Go figure.
Having had drugs forced on him by the “system,” would he know any other world but that of drugs?
Getting back to the Times Union:
People in the field say their top priority is plugging staff shortages, which are the result of low pay, odd hours and, if you ask them, “chronic underfunding” by the state and federal government.
These shortages have caused delays for people seeking detox and rehab services, which wouldn’t be as big a crisis, they say, if people had immediate access to withdrawal medicine.
end quotes
There also would not be such a crisis if the hospitals themselves were not causing it by having children arrested by the New York State Police and brought into those facilities to be forced onto drugs that the insurance companies then have to pay for, which is an insurance scam by every other name you want to call it.
And then the Times Union article switches to this heading “Slipping through the cracks in the system”:
More than two years after her son’s death, Roy can count all the ways the world failed him.
There was the trooper who wouldn’t call an ambulance after he attempted suicide and the doctors (about 20, by Roy’s count) who said they couldn’t prescribe medication for his withdrawal.
There was the emergency room that turned him away for not being sick enough, the county employees who wouldn’t make eye contact when he asked for housing to get off the streets, the prosecutors who agreed to lessen his charges if he gave up the names of other dealers, but who never once asked about his addiction.
There was the insurance plan that paid for rehab just long enough to get him clean but not a minute more.
And, just four days before he locked himself in a bathroom and stuck a needle in his arm, a decision that proved fatal after three weeks drug-free, there was the judge who ignored a probation officer’s recommendation.
Will needed help for his addiction — intensive, inpatient, longterm help, the officer said — not more probation.
end quotes
Is the system broken, or is it just me?
And how does the broken system want to cure itself?
Let’s go back to the Times Union and see:
Physicians like Weimer, who are trained in the science behind addiction and evidence-based methods to treat it, say the best way to stem the tide of opioid-related deaths is to make addiction medication available — widely, and without delay or red tape — to anyone who wants it.
Buprenorphine, commonly know by the brand name Suboxone, can alleviate an addict’s suffering immediately and curb their cravings until they move up on a waiting list for more intensive treatment, such as detox and rehabilitation.
end quotes
Ah, yes, we need more Pharm, not less – fight the drug addiction disease with yet more drugs, because America’s youth are now diseased with drug addiction.
But as the Times Union says:
But the diagnosing and treatment of addiction is something that physicians, especially primary care doctors, have historically avoided.
Such work was best left, in their view, to psychiatrists and addiction specialists.
Even if they wanted to prescribe addiction medication, federal law requires providers undergo training and obtain a special license to prescribe it.
It also imposes limits on the type and number of providers who can prescribe it and on how many prescriptions they can write.
Hoping to increase access in New York, the state Health Department began an effort last year to recruit more doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners to become buprenorphine prescribers by offering regional trainings and expanding the number of locations where the drug is available.
Yet, as drug use climbs to record highs in the U.S., more advocates are calling for the elimination of special licenses for prescribing rights and other restrictions that limit availability.
Medicine to treat addiction, they say, should be handed out as freely as the painkillers that caused the dependence in the first place.
This single change could capture people at the moment they’re about to fall back into a habit, and save their lives as more and more drugs on the black market are being laced with deadly doses of fentanyl, said Keith Brown, director of health and harm reduction at the Katal Center for Health, Equity and Justice.
“France, which had an overdose crisis in the ’80s and ’90s, basically just made buprenorphine available to everyone,” he said.
“You didn’t have to jump through a thousand hoops, you didn’t have to go get tested every day.”
“They just made it available and their overdoses plummeted.”
end quotes
Which now makes taking drugs pretty much worry free.
So, is that a model to emulate here in America?
Or should we try the alternative of raising drug-free children in America?
Your choice, America, but once made, it is irrevocable, so think carefully as to what it might be.
So, let’s do a quick recap here, people, to see where this is all going – hoping to increase access to yet another drug in New York to counteract the effects of other prescribed drugs, the state Health Department began an effort last year to recruit more doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners to become buprenorphine prescribers, or pushers, by offering regional trainings and expanding the number of locations where the drug is available.
So what is this buprenorphine, called Suboxone, that the New York State Department of Health is pushing?
How much does the stuff cost?
According to the internet, we have this information to consider:
BUPRENORPHINE is used to treat certain types of drug dependence.
The lowest GoodRx price for the most common version of buprenorphine is around $96.26, 67% off the average retail price of $300.80.
Who profits off the drug?
This is what the internet has to say in a HuffPost article by contributer Paul Alexander entitled “As Manufacturer Of Leading Addiction Drug Comes Under Legal Fire, A New Competitor Emerges” on Oct. 27, 2016, as follows:
America is in the throes of an opioid addiction epidemic.
In 2014, of the 21.5 million adults suffering from drug addiction, 2.5 million were abusing opiates — illegal drugs, like heroin, and prescription painkillers, like oxycodone, codeine, and morphine.
An opioid interacts with the brain and nervous system to relieve pain and produce feelings of pleasure.
Taken properly, an opioid can be valuable, especially with pain management.
When abused, it can be extremely dangerous.
Of the 47,055 accidental deaths in 2014, the majority involved opioids — 18,893 from painkillers, 10,574 from heroin.
Because of this epidemic, pharmaceutical companies have been eager to develop drugs to treat opioid addiction.
In 2002, Reckitt Benckiser, a consumer goods company that owns products like Lysol and Mucinex, succeeded in doing so when the Food and Drug Administration granted it exclusive rights to Suboxone.
The new opioid addiction medicine consisted of buprenorphine, a synthetic opioid, and naloxone, an antagonist that at a certain level stops the influence of the opioid, creating a “ceiling” to the opioid’s effect.
Because buprenorphine and naloxone already existed, Suboxone qualified for a seven-year patent instead of the 20-year patent awarded to original drugs.
Once Suboxone hit the market, it became so popular it replaced Methadone as the preferred opioid treatment in part because Suboxone, sold in pill form, could be distributed in a doctor’s office and Methadone required a patient to make visits to a clinic.
By the time its patent expired in 2009, Suboxone enjoyed an 85 percent market share with total sales of $2 billion — not a bad return on investment for merely combining two drugs.
end quotes
Yes, sir, that drug epidemic sure is good for bidness, so let’s push pills to America’s young people to keep that gravy train rolling, which is what this story about the Nightmare in New York is all about.
And speaking of getting on the gravy train, let’s go back to the HuffPost article as follows:
Reckitt, however, didn’t want the gravy train to end, so in 2013 when the FDA approved two generic versions of Suboxone pills to be sold by other companies Reckitt took action.
It set up a separate company, Indivior, to sell Suboxone and partnered with MonoSol Rx to develop a filmstrip version (dissolvable under the tongue like a breath strip) that could be patented until 2023.
Then Indivior paid doctors to advocate for Suboxone filmstrips over pills, raised the price of its pill version, and lowered the price of its filmstrip version, all in an effort to drive business to Suboxone filmstrips.
When the generic Suboxone pills proved to be competition — Indivior’s market share dropped below 60 percent — the company took its pill version off the market altogether and asked the FDA to ban both generic and name-brand Suboxone pills, claiming the pills posed a danger to children who could accidently consume them, even though Indivior continued to sell the pill version in Europe where its patent remained in effect.
end quotes
It is all about making money, afterall.
And back to HuffPost:
Finally, this September, 36 state attorneys general filed an antitrust lawsuit against Indivior and MonoSol Rx that claimed the companies took actions to monopolize the opiate addiction treatment market, including engaging in “product hopping,” a practice whereby a company makes minor changes to a drug in order to extend its patent unjustly.
The state leading the lawsuit is Wisconsin, where overdose deaths from opioids rose nearly 70 percent from 514 in 2005 to 872 in 2015.
Because of this serious health crisis, the state argued Indivior’s attempt to manipulate the opiate treatment market had life-threatening consequences.
A lack of competition produced higher prices, making it harder to get the medication to people who needed it most.
end quotes
Is there anybody out there in America besides me that sees something seriously wrong here with all of this pill-pushing?
And getting back to the HuffPost article:
Ohio, also part of the lawsuit, is dealing with addiction problems so severe a recent Congressional report called the state “the face of the nation’s opioid epidemic.”
Between 2012 and 2014, accidental opioid deaths rose 59 percent to 2,531 deaths; the number hit 3,050 in 2015.
Every day, eight people died of a drug overdose in Ohio, half from heroin.
Still, 86 percent of people suffering from drug dependency were unable to receive necessary care in part because of an unstable opioid treatment market.
end quotes
And why are people suffering from drug dependency?
Is it because they have had drugs forced on them by the “system,” which includes social workers in the so-called “Child Protective Services,” and doctors and hospital psych units as in the case of this young woman in Poestenkill, New York this story starts out talking about?
And back again to HuffPost:
Wisconsin and Ohio found they were dealing with another problem caused by Suboxone.
Unlike pills, filmstrips are easy to smuggle into prisons and jails — one can simply slip a filmstrip into the pages of a Bible or hide it behind a postage stamp — where inmates abuse the drug.
Maryland was coping with the same problem.
Because nearly a quarter of buprenorphine prescriptions are paid for by Medicaid, there is a public interest in the matter.
So Maryland lawmakers interceded.
They removed Suboxone from the state’s Preferred Drug List and replaced it with Zubsolv, which is sold in pill form.
By eliminating the Suboxone pill simply to try and monopolize the opiate addiction treatment market, Reckitt may have damaged its product, since Wisconsin and Ohio, among other states, are considering switching from Suboxone to Zubsolv just as Maryland did.
Indeed, many patients prefer Zubsolv, which is a buprenorphine-naloxone drug but with a different combination of the two original drugs that patients find more tolerable.
The experience of taking the drug is better and, since withdrawal symptoms from Zubsolv are not as harsh, patients report that getting off the drug is easier.
Zubsolv is also less expensive.
Finally, two-thirds of the nation’s attorneys general have not deemed the maker of Zubsolv, Orexo US, a bad actor as they have with the makers of Suboxone.
That, it has to be said, must stand for something.
end quotes
HUH?
They are not a “bad actor?”
How did they get that status?
By buying it through political contributions?
Getting back to this buprenorphine, I asked these following questions of the internet, to wit:
* Can you die from buprenorphine?
Accidental or intentional overdose of Suboxone is less likely to kill you then an overdose of other opiates.
However, you can die from an overdose with Suboxone in combination with another sedative.
You can die if you take too much benzodiazepine (Xanax, Valium, Klonopin) or too much alcohol with Suboxone.
* What are the side effects of long term use of buprenorphine?
Common side effects may include:
•headache, mild dizziness;
•numbness or tingling;
•drowsiness, or sleep problems (insomnia);
•stomach pain, vomiting, constipation;
•redness, pain, or numbness in your mouth;
•feeling drunk; or.
•trouble concentrating.
Other side effects that may occur during a period of active use or withdrawal include:
•Constipation (during use).
•Diarrhea (during withdrawal).
•Arthralgia, or joint pain (during withdrawal).
•Insomnia.
•Irritability.
•Jitteriness.
•Pinpoint pupils (during use).
•Dilated pupils (during withdrawal).
end quotes
Land of the Brave and Home of the Free, my ***!
Reminds me of a song from back when by Steppenwolf called “The Pusher:”
You know I’ve smoked a lot of grass
O’Lord, I’ve popped a lot of pills
But I never touched nothin’
That my spirit could kill
You know, I’ve seen a lot of people walkin’ ’round
With tombstones in their eyes
But the pusher don’t care
Ah, if you live or if you die
You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he’s not a natural man
The dealer for a nickel
Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams
Ah, but the pusher ruin your body
Lord, he’ll leave your, he’ll leave your mind to scream
And while we are on this subject of drugged-up children in America, and how they get hooked on drugs in the first place, I would like to return to the Florida Sun Sentinel article “After Parkland, number of children hospitalized for mental health care jumped” by Megan O’Matz on 28 April 2018, where we find as follows:
Now Florida’s Baker Act – and whether officials should have used it to get intensive psychiatric help for Cruz – will be a key focus of a commission set up by the Florida Legislature to investigate system failures that led to the massacre of 17 Stoneman Douglas students and teachers.
end quotes
Focus in on that phrase “system failures,” because more and more, it seems as if the United States of America itself is nothing but one great big system failure, clear across the board, especially in Florida and New York state, and Washington, D.C..
As the Sun Sentinel informs us:
In a state without easy access to mental health care, the Baker Act has become the foremost way to get help for those in distress.
It allows for people who are too sick to care for themselves – or at risk of killing themselves or others – to be held for up to 72 hours for a psychiatric exam and possibly be committed by a judge for longer treatment.
end quotes
In that, it is very similar to “Kendra’s Law” in New York State, the law that was being abused in the story of the young woman in Poestenkill, New York who was having psych drugs forced on her by a clearly out-of-control system that seems to be using these children as drug test guinea pigs, as well as cash cows for BIG PHARM.
According to the Sun Sentinel article:
Between 2011 and 2016, the number of children hospitalized under the act rose by nearly 50 percent, far higher than the growth in the state’s population, according to the University of South Florida, which tracks Baker Acts.
end quotes
One has to wonder how much of that increase was caused by the psych money put into the system by Obamacare.
Afterall, as HealthCare.gov tells us under the heading “Mental health & substance abuse coverage:”
All Marketplace plans cover mental health and substance abuse services as essential health benefits.
Mental and behavioral health services are essential health benefits
All plans must cover:
• Behavioral health treatment, such as psychotherapy and counseling
• Mental and behavioral health inpatient services
• Substance use disorder (commonly known as substance abuse) treatment
Pre-existing mental and behavioral health conditions are covered, and spending limits aren’t allowed
• Marketplace plans can’t put yearly or lifetime dollar limits on coverage of any essential health benefit, including mental health and substance use disorder services.
end quotes
In other words, the sky is the limit, which represents a huge gold mine for these psych treatment centers that can simply issue an order whenever they like to the police and have these people brought in for “observation.”
Getting back to the Sun Sentinel:
Among the reasons cited for the increase: cyberbullying, limited mental health services, a shift away from arresting juveniles, and mass shootings, according to a 2017 Florida Department of Children and Families report.
end quotes
Wow, what a world the “Land of the Brave and Home of the Free” has turned into, especially for the children, who now have all these new technological ways to reach out and bully someone.
Makes me glad I was young when I was, and all this crap wasn’t around yet.
Getting back to the Sun Sentinel:
The Parkland shooting, at least in the initial weeks, drove the numbers even higher, according to the university’s data, which is preliminary.
Typically this school year an average of 118 children a day underwent involuntary mental exams in Florida.
The day after the Parkland shooting, there were at least 177 Baker Acts of children statewide.
On Feb. 20, there were 188.
The 195 seen on Feb. 27 appears to be the peak, the university’s numbers show.
In March the figures dropped and were more in line with the daily average before the shooting, as fears dissipated and children coped better.
end quotes
What a sick and sorry world those children are forced to live in, is my thought.
How did it become that way?
Getting back to the Sun Sentinel:
“There was a true increase in anxiety, stress and depression leading people to feel like they were unsafe,” said Jill Ehrenreich-May, a University of Miami associate professor in child psychology.
In addition, school professionals naturally wanted “to make sure nobody slipped through the cracks again.”
end quotes
Ah, yes, slipping through the cracks, which is exactly what the Parkland school shooter did, as we shall soon see, while this young woman in Poestenkill, New York was having her young life derailed by those in the “system” who were forcing her to take drugs that were making her feel suicidal.
Back to the Sun Sentinel:
In the two weeks after the shooting, Broward schools sent 34 children to hospitals for psychiatric exams, district data shows.
That’s more than twice the number they sent in all of January.
Most of the 34 students were considered suicidal, but seven were described as homicidal.
end quotes
Now, let’s stop right here for a moment and ponder why those 34 students were either suicidal or homicidal.
Was it from the side effects of psych drugs?
end quotes
To delve further into that question, let’s go back to the Sun Sentinel where we learn as follows:
Due to privacy laws, no details were provided on the nature of those cases or the ages of the children.
end quotes
And that is it, people.
We can’t know.
Why?
Who does that protect?
More to come.
And to bring this sad story to a close, let’s go back to the Sun Sentinel one last time where we have this critical question in the light of what happened to this young woman in Poestenkill, New York, who was forced on drugs by the “system” when she was about fifteen years old, which system includes the so-called but apparently mis-named “child protective services,” which services seems to exist to keep BIG PHARM’s profits flowing for them at the expense of the children they get hooked on drugs:
Why wasn’t Cruz, who had an emotional behavioral disorder, a chaotic home life and other complex developmental disabilities, ever hospitalized by authorities?
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
“It seems like he should have been,” said Ehrenreich-May, the University of Miami expert.
end quotes
In the light of the aftermath, that certainly is the million-dollar question, and yes, people, it does seem that way, does it not, which takes us back to the Sun Sentinel article, to wit:
Predicting whether a child will act on an impulse to kill himself or someone else is very difficult, research shows.
The Baker Act law has limitations – designed to protect people’s freedom and liberties – which, in this case, failed Cruz.
Under the law, authorities must have a reason to believe that someone is likely to seriously hurt himself or others in the near future.
Records show Cruz was able to fend off attempts to hospitalize him by simply denying that he had any intention of killing himself or anyone else.
end quotes
And perhaps at the time he was asked these questions, he didn’t have those thoughts, but let’s see where this goes from there:
For example, in a 2013 incident at the Cruz’s Parkland home, Nikolas, then 13, threw a chair, yelled, called his mother a “useless bitch,” and barricaded himself in his room, according to a police report.
end quotes
What a mouth on a 13-year old!
And one must wonder from where it was that he picked up his vocabulary and his sense of respect for his parents, but wait, isn’t that the way young David Hogg of tony, upscale Parkland, Florida talked to his mother, as well?
And of course, it is, according to a RealClearPolitics article posted by Tim Hains March 23 2018, as follows:
The Outline interviewed David Hogg, a 17-year old survivor of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, who says he is the NRA’s “worst nightmare.”
Hogg’s interview was laced with profanity against his detractors, Gov. Rick Scott, the NRA, old people and others.
Hogg said he became an activist because adults don’t know how to “use a f*cking democracy”:
“When your old-ass parent is like, ‘I don’t know how to send an iMessage,’ and you’re just like, ‘Give me the f**king phone and let me handle it.’”
“Sadly, that’s what we have to do with our government; our parents don’t know how to use a f**king democracy, so we have to.”
end quotes
Do they all speak to their parents that way down in Florida?
Is that how they are taught by their school system to talk to adults?
Seems so, doesn’t it?
Getting back to the Sun Sentinel and the Cruz story:
A sheriff’s deputy went so far as to handcuff him and put him in the back of a cruiser while assessing the situation.
A counselor from Henderson Behavioral Health arrived, his mom gave him medicine, and he calmed down.
end quotes
Now, there is a key statement in this saga of the drugged-up children of America, alright – his mom gave him medicine and he calmed down!
But why was he acting out in the first place?
Could it have been the rage associated with child psych drugs like Welbutrin?
Getting back to the Sun Sentinel:
The counselor told the deputy that because his behavior was under control, and he “did not make any threats of harm to him or others, a Baker Act was not needed,” according to the police report.
end quotes
But his behavior was not under control- to the contrary, he was under the control of the “medicine” his mom gave him – the one is not the other.
A child on drugs is a child on drugs!
Somebody who needs drugs to make them “act normal” is not normal, and a key unanswered question here is this: if Cruz was already on meds when he was 13, how young was he when they started him on drugs?
And why?
An informative article from the Scientific American entitled “Should Kids Take Psychiatric Medication?” by psychologist Ellen Hendriksen on January 27, 2016, gives us this information to consider:
This topic comes by request on the Savvy Psychologist Facebook page from listener Anita M. of Detroit.
Anita works with foster kids and, too often, sees disadvantaged kids who have been on a cocktail of psychiatric medications from as early as age 6.
She asks, does such early use alter a child’s brain or body?
And have the effects of lifelong psychiatric medication been studied?
end quotes
The answer given is as follows:
Childhood mental illness (and resulting medication) is equally overblown and under-recognized.
Approximately 21% of American kids – that’s 1 in 5 – will battle a diagnosable mental illness before they reach the age of 17, whether or not they actually get treatment.
The problem is anything but simple.
Some childhood illnesses – ADHD and autism, for example – often get misused as “grab-bag” diagnoses when something’s wrong but no one knows what.
This leads to overdiagnosis and sometimes, overmedicating.
Other illnesses, like substance abuse, get overlooked or written off as rebellion or experimentation, leading to underdiagnosis and kids slipping through the cracks.
end quotes
So the young woman in Poestenkill who was made to feel suicidal by the drugs forced on her by the “system” was over-medicated while Cruz slipped through the cracks.
The Scientific American article, which should be read by anyone interested in this subject then goes into some scientific analysis, which is interesting reading, and then comes to this conclusion:
Now, does all this mean it’s acceptable to put 6-year-olds on antipsychotics?
The answer?
We don’t know.
But it’s no coincidence that medication overload starts at age 6, because this is when kids start school.
When one child constantly disrupts the learning of 20-30 others, medication unfortunately can get called in as a neutralizing ray.
But, just like adults shouldn’t substitute coffee for sleep, or alcohol for relaxation, psychiatric medication should never be a substitute for teaching kids self-regulation, dealing with a stressful family situation, or to sedate a child who is causing problems.
end quotes
But in America, we can’t teach children discipline, because according to our more liberal breathren in America, teaching kids discipline breaks their spirit, so we need to drug them instead, which takes us to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry website, where we have this information to ponder:
No. 21; Updated July 2017
Medication can be an effective part of the treatment for several psychiatric disorders of childhood and adolescence.
The physician who recommends medication should have experience treating psychiatric illnesses in children and adolescents.
He or she should fully explain the reasons for recommending medication, what benefits the medication should provide, as well as possible risks, adverse effects, and other treatment alternatives.
end quotes
I was once a child among other children, and I had children of my own who now have children of their own, and in that time, no one I knew had to have a psychiatrist treating them as a child, but of, course, that was before Obamacare made that a lucrative field to get into – drugging up children and getting them hooked on drugs at an early age, just to keep the cash flow coming in.
Before recommending any medication, the child and adolescent psychiatrist interviews the youngster and makes a thorough diagnostic evaluation.
In some cases, the evaluation may include a physical exam, psychological testing, laboratory tests, other medical tests such as an electrocardiogram (EKG) or electroencephalogram (EEG), and consultation with other medical specialists.
Psychiatric medication should be used as part of a comprehensive plan of treatment, with ongoing medical assessment and, in most cases, individual and/or family psychotherapy.
When prescribed appropriately by a child and adolescent psychiatrist or prescriber trained in children’s mental health, and taken as prescribed, medication may reduce or eliminate troubling symptoms and improve the daily functioning of children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders.
Medications which have beneficial effects may also have side effects, ranging from mildly annoying to very serious.
Because each youngster is different and may respond differently to medication, close contact with the treating physician is recommended.
end quotes
Is there anyone besides me that finds that to be simply incredible?
These children are lab rats and cash cows at the same time.
And that is what happened to this young woman in Poestenkill after she got snagged by the “system” that feeds off children in America for profit – first it was this drug, but oh, whoops, bad side effects, so then onto another drug, but oh, whoops again, more side effects, requiring more observation in the hospital, right up to today, when the young woman is twenty and is trying to get clean of drugs to get control of her life back.
So what are these psych drugs used to treat?
According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry website, medication may be prescribed for psychiatric symptoms and disorders, including, but not limited to:
1. Bedwetting-if it persists regularly after age 5 and causes serious problems in low self-esteem and social interaction.
2. Anxiety (school refusal, phobias, separation or social fears, generalized anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorders)-if it keeps the youngster from normal daily activities.
3. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-marked by a short attention span, trouble concentrating, and restlessness.
The child is easily upset and frustrated, often has problems getting along with family and friends, and usually has trouble in school.
4. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)-recurring obsessions (troublesome and intrusive thoughts) and/or compulsions (repetitive behaviors or rituals such as handwashing, counting, or checking to see if doors are locked) that interfere with a youngster’s daily functioning.
5. Depression-lasting feelings of sadness, helplessness, hopelessness, unworthiness, guilt, inability to feel pleasure, a decline in school work, and changes in sleeping and eating habits.
6. Eating disorder-either self-starvation (anorexia nervosa), binge eating and vomiting (bulimia), or a combination of the two.
7. Bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder-periods of depression alternating with manic periods, which may include irritability, “high” or happy mood, excessive energy, behavior problems, staying up late at night, and grand plans.
8. Psychosis-symptoms include irrational beliefs, paranoia, hallucinations (seeing things or hearing sounds that don’t exist), social withdrawal, clinging, strange behavior, extreme stubbornness, persistent rituals, and deterioration of personal habits.
Psychosis may be seen in developmental disorders, severe depression, schizoaffective disorder, or schizophrenia.
9. Autism spectrum disorders-characterized by severe deficits in social interactions, language, and/or thinking or ability to learn, and usually diagnosed in early childhood.
10. Severe aggression-which may include assaultive behavior, excessive property damage, or prolonged self-abuse, such as head-banging or cutting.
11. Sleep problems-symptoms can include insomnia, night terrors, sleep walking, fear of separation, or anxiety.
end quotes
Off the subject slightly, but some or perhaps many of our national politicians in Washington, D,C, seem to be afflicted by No. 8 to include irrational beliefs, paranoia, hallucinations, strange behavior, extreme stubbornness, and deterioration of personal habits.
As the song from back when said: one pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all, go ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall, which takes us back to the Cruz story:
A few years later, authorities had another opportunity but failed to act.
In late September 2016, Cruz allegedly told a classmate he drank gasoline the prior week, had cut his arms, and had a gun at home and was thinking of using it, according to mental health records.
The school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas, Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson – later tarred publicly for failing to rush into the freshman building to halt Cruz’s murderous attack – wanted then to hospitalize Cruz.
Two school counselors agreed.
But it wasn’t done, for reasons that currently remain unclear.
Instead, a counselor from Henderson questioned Nikolas and he denied drinking gas and said he owned only a pellet gun.
He admitted scratching his arm with a pencil sharpener blade over a breakup with a girl, but said he was no longer lonely and had no desire to kill himself or anyone else.
end quotes
So from this, it is quite obvious that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office was quite familiar with Cruz roughly two years before he went on a rage and starting killing people.
So what happened:
Here is what the Sun Sentinel tells us:
The counselor drew up a “safety plan” for Cruz that included coping strategies in times of stress, such as reading magazines, watching TV, fishing and spending time with pets.
end quotes
Spend time with pets?
Isn’t this a kid who set cats on fire?
And watching TV in times of stress?
You have got to be kidding me here.
TV is the last thing anyone who is stressed out needs, and more and more people I know are doing what I do – throw the damn TV right in the trash to keep that mind rot from coming into our homes like an overflowing sewer outfall.
And what else was part of that safety plan?
Here is what the Sun Sentinel tells us:
His mother was told to lock up sharp objects and alcohol.
He was not hospitalized.
The following day, Sept. 29, 2016, a school guidance counselor asked Henderson to again evaluate Cruz because he was talking of buying a gun, now that he was 18.
The counselor feared his mom would allow him to get a state ID so he could make the purchase.
On that day, the school resource officer did not believe Cruz met the criteria to be hospitalized, the assessment notes show.
The school instead created another “safety plan,” that involved taking Nikolas’ backpack away from him, noting that he had written the word “kill” in a notebook because he was mad at his mom, the records show.
Another Henderson counselor visited the home, and Cruz explained: “I was angry then, but I wouldn’t hurt my mom.”
The counselor wrote: “Currently there are no guns at the home.”
“At this time client does not meet criteria for B.A. (Baker Act).”
When someone denies any intent to die or kill others “it makes it very, very hard,” to hospitalize them under the Baker Act “unless there is some kind of evidence to the contrary,” said consultant Martha Lenderman, one of Florida’s leading experts on the law.
“You end up with a he-said-she-said thing sometimes,” she said.
Now, after the shooting, the district is scrambling to hire dozens of additional therapists to help children for the long term.
It has a crisis assistance center set up at Pine Trails Park in Parkland for students, parents and staff who need grief counseling, referrals to community resources and support groups.
end quotes
And there we have it, people.
That is the America we find ourselves living in today.
How come?