Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter
From Classic's graph link in Wikipedia...
Reagan, as Governor of Calif pushed the de-institutionalization of patients with mental illness...
proposing instead they be treated in their local communities with the State providing funds.
The funding never happened.
Then, as President, this de-institutionalization program spread across the nation.
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Not to defend the resultant lack of care, but we cannot gloss over what those institutions were and occasionally still are. Abuse and neglect were rampant the system needed to be bulldozed not tweaked. Even today the institutionalized mentally ill suffer at the hands of insensitive, sometimes abusive, poorly trained staff. My SiL is trying to cleanup one such public facility in NYS. You would not believe how many workers are on administrative leave when they should have been fired and maybe prosecuted. Cuomo is rightfully pissed about it.
Oh and legalize it. You know, if Obama put a legalization plank down, I'd be back on board in a heartbeat. Hell I might even put a election sign by the road.