On June 13, we sent out a legislative alert warning that S.1245/H.1994, An Act to Provide More Timely Treatment (already a concerning bill) had been dramatically rewritten as assigned a new number (S.2785). As we mentioned this rewrite was far more concerning than the prior version, and was bypassing the opportunity for a public hearing and open comment period. By that point, the bill had already been passed favorably out of the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery and moved forward to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing. We encouraged people to be in touch with the Health Care Financing Committee as soon as possible to express opposition to the bill.

Alarmingly, on June 18, we learned that the bill had already been voted favorably out of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing and was heading to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. The momentum that has built around this bill is frightening and suggests a real hope on the part of its proponents to push it through before this legislative season ends.

At this time, we are releasing a new letter campaign directed at the Senate Ways and Means Committee and asking people to act quickly to reach out to members of this committee by phone AND e-mail. (You can find phone numbers HERE!)

This bill is represents an unconstitutional change to a supreme court decision that bypasses due process and opportunity for public comment.

It reduces some of the already very limited protections against forced drugging in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by allowing for the principle of substituted judgement to be separated from determinations about whether or not someone should lose the right to make their own decisions about taking or not taking psychiatric drugs.

Substituted judgement is a critical legal principle that requires courts to do their best to look at evidence that can help them determine what someone (who is deemed unable to make an informed decision about their treatment in their current state) would do if they were in a place to make an informed decision. It requires courts to look at past decisions, expressed preferences, religious beliefs and likelihood of efficacy of treatments among other points.

The reason given for this change is based on bad science and the unfounded assertion that "immediate and irreversible" damage is likely to occur in the relatively short period of time it would take to go through the due process of a Rogers Hearing.

The Rogers law is already routinely misused and distorted and any change that allows for an easier path to ignore people's rights is dangerous.