Trust Issue
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 09:31:30 -0700
To: <chris@nami.apollonian.com>
From: "Ellen Rodin"
Subject: Re: NAMI E-News
Cc: "Andrew Phelps" <starfish@northcoast.com>

Re: NAMI E-News

15 National Groups Demand ABC Warn Viewers

Your bias in favor of medication, and in disregard of the wishes of those in our community whose thinking is well, different but who wish not to be medicated, is way out front on this one. As you describe the episode, it appears to me there is a genuine issue raised about legally forced medication, a genuine issue which you want to cover up in an hysterical approach dealing with suicide. But the question of whether mental patients should be forced, by law, to take medication they hate, and which has well-known and very adverse other affects, including decreased libido, and other inhibitions of normal drives — that very alive issue is exactly the one you wish to cover up in your hysteria. More particularly, you not only wish to cover the issue, but you wish to cover NAMI’s strong pushing for laws in every state that require medication and which permit so-called “mentally ill” persons to be incarcerated not for any conduct but failing to take their medication. That law already exists in New York, and you are pushing nationally and particularly in California.

Thank you for displaying your particular bias so strongly and so well.