Involuntary commitment

Yeah.

Right? You know, it's v- the ITA laws, the Involuntary Treatment Act, and, and those things are very difficult to implement.

They're, they're very difficult to apply, you know? And it, basically in Bellingham, you can overdose at 9:00 in the morning, and then, uh, you know, they Narcan you back to life, live to die another day.

And, you know, because you got your buzz ruined, everybody's angry and-

... you know, those kind of things.

What is your perspective on, um, involuntary commitment?

You know, it, dependent on the case, dependent on the case, I've, I've, I've seen it absolutely save someone's life, especially when there's heavy co-occurring mental health as well as addiction going on.

Um, our, our women's treatment center used to be in Florida when we first opened it, and then we moved it back to Texas, but Florida is the one that where they have the Marchman Act, and we actually treated a couple of women, um, that their families had, had taken that route.

And I absolutely love it.

I, I, I love every part of it because lots of times these days, you know, and, and probably in the past too, but I can only talk about these days, the, the, the, the streets or the, you know, the, the using game is way more dangerous now than, than it was w- when I was out there, you know, doing my thing.

So to be able to have a way to, um, have a person whose brain has been very, very affected by their own, you know, um, addiction journey, to have the luxury and the resource of time that is sort of, you know, buttoned up by leverage, whether it's court leverage, whether it was involuntary commitment, you know, whatever it is, um, I, I think that that's great.

And, you know, some people will say, "Well, you know, uh, so and so, you know, you, you lied to me to, to get me in treatment.

We're really excited.

On the civil side, there was a story in the Seattle Times recently about the fact that it's still taking, I think, on average, six months for civil commitment patients who are ready for discharge to be placed back in the community.

And of course, that keeps a bed that's needed on the civil side occupied by somebody who do- no longer, the doctors say no longer needs to be there.

What, what is being done to try to reduce that wait?

"For 23 years, Washington has detained a man for a crime he can't understand.

Washington taxpayers spent more than $500,000 a year to hold a man with intellectual disabilities on McNeil Island." Uh, then they, uh, reported on, um, "Special Commitment Center residents went months without medical care, an internal report found." There was, uh, concerns about Kevin Coe, who, uh, was released, uh, um, without expressing remorse and undergoing treatment.

Uh, there's concerns about clinical staffing and treatment hours plummeting to their lowest level in years, potentially compromising the legality of Washington's Civil Commitment program.

On and on and on.

well, do you know word for word

the statutes for the ITA, the Involuntary Treatment Act? Do you know the word for word? And I'm like, no, but if you feel like I don't understand it, go ahead and tell me it.

And he's like, actually, I'm not going to do that because then you're just going to be able to articulate a specific sentence that will be the series of magic words that's going to make me have to go out there.

And I'm like, you don't want to tell me the law because you don't want me to be able to inform you of why you have to go out there.

I was talking to my sibling who's doing very well, also a sister of mine.

My sibling told me...

Wait, what's ITA'd? Involuntary Treatment Act.

So she basically got 5150'd.

the severely mentally ill mom who wasn't getting the treatment that she needed and the police who put in an impossible position.

So I've announced that as AG, I will launch an office of civil commitment so that first responders, when they're responding to a situation where there's an EDP or someone who's severely mentally ill, you can actually have someone to call to see if this person, let's get this person the care they need, the treatment they need.

Severely mentally ill people should not be out on the streets.

And that's a way, having that new office and that new mechanism is gonna help everyone.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is your worst nightmare.

You don't want to actually be in a situation where you feel you need to shoot someone who's mentally ill.

So my thing is, let's solve the actual problem, right? Let's get an office of civil commitment up and running where we make sure that when we're in that situation, we can try and put this person in treatment.

We can intervene early.