Nuts to Torrey.

• Position: Letter to the Editor

There is a very good reason why California law prohibits the incarceration of mental patients ("Hippie Healthcare Policy," by E. Fuller Torrey, April 2002). Mental illness is not a crime. In the nominal case, that is how it should be. Medication, hospitalization, and prison are all forms of societal treatment. All should require due process on behalf of the accused.

It is a serious matter to judge someone unfit to make their own decisions. Yet doctors continue to argue for this exemplary power that even judges and elected officials do not have. An accusation of murder affords a certain set of rights. Yet the author seems to argue that an accusation of depressive, schizophrenic, or suicidal behavior should afford even fewer rights than this.

The author makes some very good points as to how the CMHS is running amok with a very large federal grant. However, his underlying thesis rests on the assumption that people who eat from garbage cans should be medicated as a matter of course. That is the 1950s' mindset, and in this context, it is not at all clear why the 1960s anti-establishment view is any less relevant today.

MICHAEL SHURPIK Cambridge, Mass. E. Fuller Torrey would have Washington Monthly readers believe that large numbers of people with mental illness don't get needed treatment because state legislatures won't enact tougher forcible-treatment laws. In contrast, the U.S. Surgeon General's definitive Report on Mental Health highlights the formidable financial barriers that profoundly limit people's access to needed mental healthcare. Yet Torrey would recklessly slash the modest funding provided the single federal agency dedicated to improving the quality and availability of mental health services, the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), because the agency doesn't subscribe to his dogma.

Torrey displays loose or highly selective regard for fact in attacking those who reject his anachronistic views. I take particular exception to his mischaracterization of the National Mental Health Association (NMHA) and its advocacy work. As the oldest, largest nonprofit...