EDITORIAL: Another tragedy shows need for a treatment law

Aug. 31--Opponents of New Mexico adopting an assisted outpatient treatment law for mentally ill residents in crisis -- one that would trigger an evaluation, even a brief detention for a psychiatric exam -- refer to it as "forced treatment."

But how many more tragedies will it take to force New Mexico lawmakers to finally step up and provide an alternative to a police response for mentally ill individuals in crisis, as well as their families and the public?

Those opponents claim that a treatment law would not have prevented the quintuple homicide by schizophrenic John Hyde or the fatal police shooting of paranoid schizophrenic James Boyd.

They say those high-profile cases are anomalies; they argue individual civil rights trump public safety.

And they cling to a chicken-and-egg argument of treatment requirements vs. the availability of treatment facilities to maintain the inertia of the status quo.

And the state's many mentally ill individuals like James Finch are left to their own private hells, in which they torment those they know and those who love them, ignore orders of protection, and in the worst of scenarios beat and stab and kill before they are found naked and screaming and covered in blood.

Too many New Mexico families struggling with mental illness and behavioral health issues can read about Finch and say "there but for the grace of God...."

A treatment law is just one piece of the complex mental illness puzzle the state is facing.

If there had been such a law in place to detain Hyde when he came to the hospital begging for help after a medication change, perhaps he could have received the treatment he needed instead of gunning down three civilians and two police officers.

If there had been such a law -- and possibly a crisis team -- in place to detain Boyd, who had been harassing neighbors as he camped illegally in the Sandias, maybe he could have received the treatment he needed instead of the police response that killed him.

And if there had been such a law to detain Finch and at least start to address his anger and social disorders and drug addiction, maybe he could have received treatment and his parents might not have been forced to live in fear for years, waiting for him to finally dig a grave in the backyard and make good on his threats of violence.

Because there is such a need in our community, Bernalillo County voters approved a dedicated $20 million annual funding stream for behavioral health, and officials are working on a collaborative treatment system.

Forty-five states already have laws that authorize assisted outpatient treatment; an attempt to replicate that here by Sen. Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces, died last session.

But the Finch tragedy shows yet again that the pain and loss of untreated mental illness is not an isolated incident.

New Mexico's mentally ill residents, those who care about them and the public at large deserve the same protections most states have.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.

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