&gt; Most critically, the Murphy-Johnson bill provides incentives to fund expanded treatment, called assisted outpatient treatment, or A.O.T.,<p>If you decide to websearch for this be aware that AOT often means &quot;assertive outreach teams&quot;.  They&#x27;re different, although they work with similar people.<p>&gt; only for those with a long history and pattern of proving a danger to themselves or others.<p>This tends to mean at risk of killing are trying to kill other people, or at risk of dying by suicide.  I&#x27;m not sure if the author&#x27;s son would fit the definition.<p>&gt; The specifics of A.O.T. vary by state, but judges can order patients to undergo treatment while they live in the community instead of in prison or a hospital.<p>In the UK &quot;community treatment disorders&quot; don&#x27;t seem to reduce rates of re-admission to hospital.  <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelancet.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;lanpsy&#x2F;article&#x2F;PIIS2215-0366(15)00231-X&#x2F;abstract" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thelancet.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;lanpsy&#x2F;article&#x2F;PIIS2215-03...</a><p>&gt; But A.O.T. is not carte blanche: It still requires court action and has strict criteria to limit treatment to the most seriously ill.<p>It&#x27;s pretty scary.  I&#x27;d want to see more details of the checks and balances involved.<p>&gt; Samhsa has used much of its budget to deal with less pernicious conditions like trauma and stress.<p>Author is severely wrong here.  &quot;Trauma&quot; covers stuff like borderline personality disorder, which can be a debilitating illness, with a high suicide rate, and high rates of accidental death, and a lot of very severe self harm.<p>Also, early intervention is important.<p>&gt; It has also funded activist groups that oppose medication<p>That&#x27;s not outrageous.  Medication often fucking sucks, and there&#x27;s not much evidence that it works effectively.  It&#x27;s often better to give people techniques to live with their illness, and keep people engaged with MH services, than to just give them a depot injection every six weeks.<p>&gt; and mainstream psychiatric care for the seriously mentally ill.<p>Again, you don&#x27;t have to look too far to find serious unwarranted interference with human rights when you start looking at MH treatment.  This isn&#x27;t just force feeding, or forced medication, or restraint and rapid tranquillisation, or detention in hospital against your will, but the lesser (still important) stuff like being fully involved in decisions about your life - what you eat, what you wear, how you spend your money, where you live.<p>Without details of the groups it&#x27;s hard to know if they&#x27;re idiots or reasonable.