Amid ongoing emergencies, including a would-be autocrat on his way to possibly regaining the American presidency and Israel’s war on Gaza (not to mention the flare-ups of global climate change), the U.S. has slipped quietly toward an assault on civil liberties as an answer to plummeting mental health. From coast to coast, state lawmakers of both parties are reaching for coercive treatment and involuntary commitment to address spiraling substance use and overdose crises — an approach that will only escalate despair and multiply otherwise preventable deaths while helping to choke the life out of America. In December, we wrote about how loneliness has become a public-health crisis, according to the Surgeon General, and the ways in which it drives widespread... Read more
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