Posts Tagged: mental health
News
Frank Lanterman won an assembly seat in 1950 with one goal: securing a steady water supply for his family’s land holdings and subdivisions in the Verdugo hills community of La Cañada outside Los Angeles, a task he completed in his first year in office. In the years to come, his influence would expand far beyond his hometown and he would become one of the most consequential legislators of his time by leading the effort to transform how California cares for people with severe mental illness.
Opinion
OPINION – Legislation introduced this session in the California Assembly (AB 3038) would require all K-12 schools to have an armed police officer stationed on campus. Instead of being a meaningful step toward school safety, this is the latest example of a simplistic, inadequate, and politically expedient solution being offered based on the powerful myth that “good guys with guns” prevent acts of extreme violence.
News
There is a growing acceptance in mental health circles that some psychedelics – particularly psilocybin, MDMA, Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) and mescaline – have great promise for treating certain mental health disorders, including post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression. But some observers fear legalizing it could kick off a psilocybin Gold Rush that emphasizes profits over patient care.
News
Long ignored or blocked by local officials and confusing laws – while tacitly expected to provide care for severely mentally ill relatives – families are mobilizing in growing numbers, exerting major influence over state legislation and public policy, and protesting county resistance to strong new laws mandating intervention, care and treatment.
News
Tributes to First Lady Rosalynn Carter invariably cite her lifelong commitment to improving care for people with severe mental illness. As she stumped for her husband during the closing days of the 1976 presidential campaign, she brought that advocacy to the unlikely locale of Bakersfield.
Opinion
OPINION – California was already experiencing a workforce shortage among mental health care workers prior to the pandemic. A 2022 report from the California Health Care Foundation found that the state has less than 12 licensed psychiatrists and slightly more than 44 licensed psychologists per 100,000 people. Since-adopted payment reform has only made it worse.
News
Ever since Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in 1967 granting people with severe mental illness greater rights and speeding the emptying of state asylums, governors have been sidestepping the issue, until now. Unlike governors before him in this state or perhaps any other, Newsom is confronting the issue of untreated mental illness.
News
Widely regarded as the most knowledgeable and effective state legislator on mental health issues in the Legislature, Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (D-Stockton) is credited with major, bipartisan legislative accomplishments over nearly 12 years, first in the Assembly, now in the Senate, where she chairs the Senate Health Committee.
Letters
LETTER – Who benefits from the expanded use of conservatorships in California? Is it for-profit mental health and hospital systems Senator Eggman is trained in? Jurisdictions tired of their homeless problem?
News
For more than five decades, the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act has been the foundation for how California treats or fails to treat people with severe mental illness. Now, legislators from both parties seek to overhaul it in ways that reflect advances in medicine, and a better understanding of its failings.
Photo via Lanterman House
