Thoughts on "The Jennifer Act"?

[tmthforu94]

http://thejenniferact.com/

I'd be interested in hearing some opinions on this forum about this bill. It was written by a good friend of mine who's daughter's life was taken due to an addiction to drugs.

[Franzl]

What precisely does it do?

[tmthforu94]

What precisely does it do?

A quick quote from the website:
"It is a way for the family or loved one to intervene and rescue someone from addiction."

That's it's general purpose. It's currently trying to be passed in Indiana and Florida.

[greenforest32]

What precisely does it do?

Seriously. How about a one or two sentence summary of what exactly the law is and what it does? Couldn't find it anywhere on the site.

What precisely does it do?

A quick quote from the website:
"It is a way for the family or loved one to intervene and rescue someone from addiction."

That's it's general purpose. It's currently trying to be passed in Indiana and Florida.

Vague statement is vague.

[tmthforu94]

Sorry, I was doing other things earlier...

Just to give some background, the lady who this bill was named after died after an addiction to drugs. Her family repeatedly tried to help her with her problems, but were unsuccessful in doing so. Now, her mother, whom I know and admire, is pushing to pass this bill in her honor.

The general point of this law is to allow parents/relatives to petition the court for treatment on behalf of their family member who is suffering with a drug addiction. The person will be evaluated by several health physicians to determine whether or not treatment would be helpful for them. In the end, if the judge finds that that the person believed to have an alcohol addiction needs treatment, they can order that person to be treated for up to 360 days, but can be less.

http://thejenniferact.com/the-jennifer-act/
Scroll down a bit and you can see the full text of the bill.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sorry, I was doing other things earlier...

Just to give some background, the lady who this bill was named after died after an addiction to drugs. Her family repeatedly tried to help her with her problems, but were unsuccessful in doing so. Now, her mother, whom I know and admire, is pushing to pass this bill in her honor.

The general point of this law is to allow parents/relatives to petition the court for treatment on behalf of their family member who is suffering with a drug addiction. The person will be evaluated by several health physicians to determine whether or not treatment would be helpful for them. In the end, if the judge finds that that the person believed to have an alcohol addiction needs treatment, they can order that person to be treated for up to 360 days, but can be less.

http://thejenniferact.com/the-jennifer-act/
Scroll down a bit and you can see the full text of the bill.

Seems good enough to me.

Will work certainly far better than sending addicts to jail.

[Napoleon]

Oppose the law because it is a clear violation of privacy rights.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oppose the law because it is a clear violation of privacy rights.

Certainly Jennifer is now very glad her rights to privacy have been respected.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I can sympathize with this, and I support improving access to treatment facilities, but I have a hard time supporting involuntary treatment facilities. It looks like someone can already be admitted involuntarily by family members going before a court, but this would allow more facilities for this.
How many of the people affected by this would be people that go to jail without it?
It's far better than incarceration, but I don't still see the justification for it if you believe in any type of personal autonomy.
The other thing I'm wondering - if the family can petition the court to put someone into treatment, can they pull them out if they decide it isn't working for them, or the program itself is harmful?  Not all people respond well to a particular treatment program.

[tmthforu94]

The other thing I'm wondering - if the family can petition the court to put someone into treatment, can they pull them out if they decide it isn't working for them, or the program itself is harmful?  Not all people respond well to a particular treatment program.

Good question. I'll pass that on, and will give the lady's response as soon as I can.

I understand the whole "privacy rights" issue, part of the reason I'm somewhat torn at it. But are privacy rights worth lives being lost?

[Hatman 🍁]

While I oppose forcing people into treatment, I would make treatment options more accessible by making them free of charge, and making many more facilities.

If someone breaks a law due to a drug addiction, then I wouldn't send them to a normal jail, rather I would send them to a clinic of sorts where they would be provided with daily methadone. They can chose to be rehabilitated, which would lead to an earlier release, or stay on methadone for the duration of their sentence.

Often with drug use, it can be very hard for the addict to break free. Their brains change so much. It usually is very tragic.

[TJ in Oregon]

I generally support the idea but it needs to be done in such a way as to give the person 'accused' some leeway in questionable cases. My concern is that I could, if I decided I don't like my brother, just record him drunk a bunch of times, take it to a judge, and try to get him 'sentenced' to rehab even if he isn't an alcoholic. This could lead to some abuse of the law.

[opebo]

Drugs > prudes.

[Napoleon]

The other thing I'm wondering - if the family can petition the court to put someone into treatment, can they pull them out if they decide it isn't working for them, or the program itself is harmful?  Not all people respond well to a particular treatment program.

Good question. I'll pass that on, and will give the lady's response as soon as I can.

I understand the whole "privacy rights" issue, part of the reason I'm somewhat torn at it. But are privacy rights worth lives being lost?

Tyler Clementi's family may like to have a word with you.

Oppose the law because it is a clear violation of privacy rights.

Certainly Jennifer is now very glad her rights to privacy have been respected.

Unless you can prove otherwise, I see no reason to assume that Jennifer did anything other than make personal choices that she felt were proper decisions in her desire to live a fulfilling and enjoyable life. While I understand the hurt her family may feel, the notion that we could dictate happiness is ridiculous.

[Cincinnatus]

Support the intention, disapprove of the method.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Oppose the law because it is a clear violation of privacy rights.

Certainly Jennifer is now very glad her rights to privacy have been respected.

Unless you can prove otherwise, I see no reason to assume that Jennifer did anything other than make personal choices that she felt were proper decisions in her desire to live a fulfilling and enjoyable life. While I understand the hurt her family may feel, the notion that we could dictate happiness is ridiculous.

...and these personal choices turned out to kill her. We all believe in personal authonomy and free choice, but when someone is endangering his own life, it's the government's duty to avoid that.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Oppose the law because it is a clear violation of privacy rights.

Certainly Jennifer is now very glad her rights to privacy have been respected.

Unless you can prove otherwise, I see no reason to assume that Jennifer did anything other than make personal choices that she felt were proper decisions in her desire to live a fulfilling and enjoyable life. While I understand the hurt her family may feel, the notion that we could dictate happiness is ridiculous.

...and these personal choices turned out to kill her. We all believe in personal authonomy and free choice, but when someone is endangering his own life, it's the government's duty to avoid that.

     How so? Maybe it would make sense to proscribe reckless risktaking if the person in question had a legal responsibility to some other person that could not be fulfilled in the event of that person's death, but it seems highly intrusive to decide that people must be barred from endangering their lives, not to mention a principle that is not really observed in American law, or any law that I know of. If it were, then mountain climbing & skydiving would have to be outlawed since those are both obvious examples of endangering one's own life.

[Franzl]

Oppose the law because it is a clear violation of privacy rights.

Certainly Jennifer is now very glad her rights to privacy have been respected.

Unless you can prove otherwise, I see no reason to assume that Jennifer did anything other than make personal choices that she felt were proper decisions in her desire to live a fulfilling and enjoyable life. While I understand the hurt her family may feel, the notion that we could dictate happiness is ridiculous.

...and these personal choices turned out to kill her. We all believe in personal authonomy and free choice, but when someone is endangering his own life, it's the government's duty to avoid that.

Strongly disagree. Everyone should have the freedom to make their own decisions....whether they have a positive, negative or even potentially fatal result. Not having the freedom to make "dumb" decisions (who defines dumb, BTW?) means you don't have real freedom.

Obviously the government can and should intervene whenever dangerous behavior also threatens the safety of another person.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I believe in freedom, but not in absolute and unchecked freedom. I think individuals should generally be left to take most of their decisions alone, but not all of them. When there is a real, objective and serious danger, regulation is necessary. This is true for drugs as for everything else.

[Franzl]

I believe in freedom, but not in absolute and unchecked freedom. I think individuals should generally be left to take most of their decisions alone, but not all of them. When there is a real, objective and serious danger, regulation is necessary. This is true for drugs as for everything else.

Well first of all....why is it in the government's (and further: the peoples') interest to tell someone they're not allowed to do something that only has the potential to harm themselves? As long as nobody else is in any danger, what's the problem?

Second of all, where do you draw the line as to what constitutes a "real, objective and serious danger"? Taking hard drugs might qualify. But driving on a busy highway could be considered quite dangerous too under certain circumstances, couldn't it? What about mountain climbing? A lot of people have unintentionally killed themselves while climbing a mountain. See where I'm going?

I don't trust the state to make these decisions. I believe individual freedom (at least as far as personal lifestyle decisions are concerned) is unlimited as long as it doesn't harm anyone else.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well first of all....why is it in the government's (and further: the peoples') interest to tell someone they're not allowed to do something that only has the potential to harm themselves? As long as nobody else is in any danger, what's the problem?

"What's the problem ?" ? I hope you're kidding.
I advice you to go to the funeral of someone who died from drug overdose and tell the parents "well, after all, it was his/her choice". I find it quite scary to see how you libertarians, with your abstracts concepts like "free choice", manage to forget human reality. Of course, you don't make laws out of emotion : I'm the first one to say it. But you make laws in order to find how to make people's lifes better. If freedom has far more negative consequences than positive ones, I see no rational reason to prefer freedom to constraint.

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The State imposes you some precautions when you go climbing mountains. It imposes you to put on your safety belt when you drive. Aren't these horrible limitations of the sacro-sanct free choice ?

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Well, that's your opinion. I'm just glad not everybody thinks like you.

[Franzl]

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I take offense at being called a libertarian!

I understand your perspective, but I still have to disagree quite strongly. There are just so many dangerous things out there. Alcohol (if abused), fast food (if abused), and the list goes on and on. Bringing emotional arguments such as "go to a funeral and (...)" seems unfair to me. You can just as easily go to the funeral of someone that died of diabetes because he ate hamburgers three times a day every day.

Education campaigns are more effective. Make sure that people know and understand the consequences of their choices. But individual choices need to be made. I don't think anyone is more competent to make them than the person involved.

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Negative consequences for who? It's quite possible that not everyone values their own life over other things. Some people simply prefer to take hard drugs and climb dangerous mountains. That's what they want to do. If they feel risking their life is a fair risk to them....who are you or anyone else to tell them what's more important for them? It's their life. Not yours.

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What safety precautions does the state require when climbing mountains? I don't know of any.

The safety belt mandate would be stupid if it were required only to protect the person driving, but in this case I think it's a fair regulation because not wearing your safety belt does have the theoretical potential to harm others. Whether in your vehicle or in other vehicles because of the possible injuries resulting in not wearing a safety belt. That's where the line needs to be. Whenever something has the potential to harm someone that did not make a choice to behave in a dangerous way.

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Oh and believe me, I feel the exact same way about you

I still take offense at being called a libertarian

[Antonio the Sixth]

I take offense at being called a libertarian!

You are a libertarian, in the proper sense of the word. It's not because Americans perverted the word to the point of making it mean "tin-foil-hatted crazy hack who wants to come back to the Stone Age" that we must stuck by this definition.

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Of course I don't want to ban fast-foods. While I want the government to protect people from this kind of dangers, we must look for the most effective way to do this. Banning might be the solution in certain case (see drugs), sometimes regulation is enough (for fast-foods, alcohol, or mountain-climbing). What, however, I find unaceptable, is letting such things totally unchecked in name of "free choice".
 

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The last sentence is obviously wrong. Otherwise, of course I support education campaign, but it's pretty clear that most of times they are not sufficient.

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There are conscious choices (people who know what taking hard drugs mean, who know how they will suffer and who decide to do that and are ready to suffer or die for the sake of having this kind of experience), but let's be serious, it's a microscopic minority. Most people who make this kind of "choices" don't realize what their choices imply, or just don't act rationally.

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There are none, really ? Well, there should be.

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Sorry, that makes absolutely no sense.

[angus]

http://thejenniferact.com/the-jennifer-act/
Scroll down a bit and you can see the full text of the bill.

What a terrible idea.  It's like pouring an alcoholic's liquor down the drain.

Only when one admits that he has a problem, that he is powerless over his addiction, will he be ready to receive help.  You cannot force this, and we have mounds of objective data as well as anecdotal evidence that trying to force recovery generally makes the problem worse. 

It's just another thoughtless jerk of the knee by the political class.  I guess I'm not surprised by it.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Oppose