Thursday, September 25, 2003

Addiction treatment program now gentler (Canada)
Story in the Toronto Star - "More than 700 welfare recipients are now involved in a controversial addiction treatment program Ontario plans to implement province-wide by 2005. It's a kinder, gentler plan than the one that critics labelled as "coercive" when it was originally announced in 2000. But one fundamental aspect remains in place: the program is mandatory for Ontario Works recipients in selected regions for whom it's deemed addiction poses a 'barrier to employment.'" The story also surveys some of the response to the program since it was announced in 2000 - " '...We are concerned that the portrayal of addictions as the major impediment to employment stigmatizes a population who are struggling to overcome what are a complex and interdependent set of barriers,' reads a letter from the top administration at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health."  
  

Pataki hit for veto of electroshock bill (New York)
Democrat & Chronicle story - "A mental-health group bashed Gov. George Pataki on Wednesday for vetoing a bill to require new reports on electroshock therapy, saying he sided with doctors and hospitals instead of patients.'We’re incensed that the governor would choose the convenience of doctors' over the wishes of patients, said Harvey Rosenthal, director of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services."