News release via Pivot Legal Society
Pivot Legal Society has released a new position paper, Involuntary Treatment: Criminalization by another name. The paper comes amid government movement toward the expansion of involuntary treatment in BC, including by Premier David Eby and Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Jennifer Whiteside. Recent rumblings from municipal, provincial, and national politicians indicate that the latest call to expand involuntary treatment directly targets people who use drugs. Involuntary treatment – for any community – is a harmful and degrading intervention at odds with healing, wellness, and best practices in drug policy and mental health care. In the context of the drug toxicity crisis, this expansion could be deadly.
Involuntary treatment includes interventions such as forced medication, institutionalization and other coerced behaviour. It builds on a legacy of sterilization, segregation, abuse, experimentation, along with settler colonialism and medical racism in Canada based on eugenics and settler colonial ideologies. Three years ago, BC’s former Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions Sheila Malcolmson was forced to pause its proposed expansion of involuntary treatment for youth (or “youth stabilization care”) under Bill 22 following widespread condemnation. (Continue reading news release)
Position Paper: Involuntary Treatment: Criminalization by another name
The position paper is endorsed by organizations and individuals who call for the abolition of involuntary treatment, including opposition to the passage of any policy or legislation that expands, sanctions, or encourages the practice.
Rather than supporting expanded involuntary or carceral treatment, we endorse supports and services that directly meet people’s material needs, built on a framework of consent, capacity, cultural safety, and peer leadership.
We call on all levels of government to invest in robust access to voluntary treatment options, including primary care, detox, treatment programs, publicly funded counselling services, residential mental health services, harm reduction programming, safe supply, family programming, culturally affirming options, and treatment modalities that reflect the intersecting identities of all those who seek and/or desire mental health and substance use support and care. Go to position paper.
Take Action: Say NO to involuntary treatment!
Involuntary treatment is a euphemism for coercive and forced medicalization. Say NO to criminalization! Learn how you can take action and DEMAND BETTER!