Mental health laws in Australia were largely rewritten in the 1980′s to force people with disability to be integrated into the greater community. At the same time these mental health laws made it very difficult for anyone to be held in a hospital against their will. The mental health laws are different from state to state, but all are apparently deficient in underprotecting people taking mind altering prescription drugs, such as common anti-depressants.
For example, fluoxetine, first choice for older teenagers, has a large range of side effects, particularly during the initial 8 weeks. Such side effects can include high suggestability and disinhibited behavior. The person may go round drawing great attention to themselves. Spend all their savings, fail to meet financial obligations, become highly abusive, and fall into the wrong crowd of people too easily … it is the effect that this prescription drug can have on people.
Now, with this prescription antidepressant, the information sheet that comes with it states that the person should be taken to the hospital and safeguarded from themselves during this drug adjustment time, should these type of symptoms arise.
Now here is the catch, the disinhibited behavior etc is not a legal ground for admitting the prescription drug taker to hospital. When someone doesn’t believe the drug is affecting their decisions, such as some teenagers, because the drug has interfered with their memory, their values of right and wrong, their insightful abilty, they wont often volunteer to be admitted to a hospital stay, and under Australian mental health laws, unless they are going to harm (injure / kill) themselves or others, they cannot be forced to go.
All the parents, police and doctor can do, is watch the teenagers life disintegrate. This is really hard for the parent who may have raised a child to a morally upstanding young adult, only to find they have succumbed to the effects of the prescription drug, and say things like “I’m an adult making adult decisions.” Some will easily fall into the wrong crowd because they are so easily led, and are a vulnerable target of society’s ferals for financial gain.
To say that people on prescription mind altering drugs are making adult decisions, ignores the fact that their thinking and behavior has been drastically altered and cannot really be seen as informed decision making that is congruent with their real belief system that may be temporarily subdued by the prescription drug.
I therefore say to every Australian that finds this post, to lobby your state member of parliament, and bring correction to these laws that grievously cause harm to some – it may be your teenager, your mother, your uncle… and it can happen to them and you so easily.