Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Cut Guns Budget To Fund More Treatment for Mental Health & Addiction

Would we allow hospital emergency rooms to refuse care to someone suffering their upteenth cardiac episode? Would we insist that a diabetic serve time in jail if their lack of self-care resulted in a car accident? What if the cost of treatment and incarceration resulted in their losing everything so that they ended up on the streets? We wouldn't allow that to happen. Yet, we do this every day to the alcoholic, the drug addict, and the individual with other mental illnesses.

"The level of Americans' prejudice and discrimination toward people with serious mental illness or substance abuse problems didn't change over 10 years, a new study has found." Here's a link to the entire article, http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/643146.html.

That's the nearly 10 years I've been away from the alcohol, tobacco and other drug policy arena. A couple weeks ago, circumstances came together to show me just how true the study's findings are. I thought surely intelligent, educated people would generally understand by now that alcoholism and drug addiction are brain dysfunctions - they barely understand that it's an inheritable disease.

It's this prejudice and discrimination that keeps people from getting the help and support they need to recover and rejoin society, to live healthy lives. It contributes to the dark shame and secrecy that binds families to the suffering and drama. It's keeps us in ignorance about an inheritable disease - if cancer runs in your family don't you learn more about it and take steps to maintain your help?

So, when I received this email today from Friends Committee on National Legislation - that's a Quaker lobbying organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. - its advocacy work "connects historic Quaker testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity, and truth with peace and social justice issues which the United States government is or should be addressing." They are urging us to make sure our congresspeople have signed onto a letter to the Deficit Commission urging them to include cuts to the military budget when figuring out how to reduce the budget deficit.

To find out more, follow this link - http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=4020&issue_id=18

Well, I say cut! cut! cut! away at the military's overstuffed budget. More money should go to prevention and treatment (and raising public knowledge about) of these awful diseases.

We need to help people learn to live, not learning them to die!