WEBVTT - The Status Quo is Killing People. Dr. Drew Talks to Armstrong & Getty 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.800 We have a celebrity guest to talk about the homeless issue. 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:08.280 It's Armstrong and Getty's extra large because four hours simply enough, 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:13.480 this is Armstrong and Getty extra large. So does that 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.079 mean this is in very longer than our usual podcasts. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.120 Is that the theory on that? I don't know. It's 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.759 a long form interview. Uh so. Dr Drew Pinski is 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.599 indeed a well known fellow from the media, but he 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.520 is an internist addiction medicine specialist UM and has been 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.519 dealing with folks with substance abuse problems for decades and 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:37.960 is absolutely, uh not only dead serious about the bums 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:39.879 and junkies problem, the homeless problem, if you want to 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:43.199 call it that, but it's really crusading and trying to 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.919 get people to see it for what it really really is. 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:49.880 Dr Drew, this is a pleasure. We really appreciate you 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.520 joining us. How are you? And we definitely have three 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:55.920 people here that are in the category of don't get 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.600 us started on the homeless situation. Yeah, yeah, I'm afraid 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:02.840 of how when you When when I get going, I'm 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.240 afraid of where I go. I'm the same way too, 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.880 be part partially because I had a personal situation with 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.400 my family where an aggressive bum got in our faces 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.280 threatened to murder and rape my family. Uh, in front 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:18.800 of me. I had to intervene physically with the dude. 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.240 Cops are called the guys now in prison. I I 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.720 hated the homeless situation before that, but since then I 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.800 really do. Yeah. So listen, why don't we start with 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:33.160 what it's not, the the giant homeless explosion in particularly 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:34.920 the West. Let me jump in right there. I'll tell 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.480 you the guy that threatened to kill my family, he 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:39.960 was not a guy who couldn't afford his apartment, right, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.640 That is not what he was. It's not a guy 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.720 for whom four walls is going to help. It's not 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.840 going to help him to push him in a room 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:54.600 of his own. He needs serious mental health treatment long term. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:59.680 And the conflation, the conflating of the real problem of 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.440 a act of affordable housing, I would a couple weeks 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.680 ago at the Schwarzenegger Foundation meeting he held, and at 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.840 that meeting there was absolute consensus that the lack of 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.000 affordable housing was a self created problem by the extraordinary 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.720 regulations in the state of California. Therefore, we could undo 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.839 that if we had the will. That's one problem. Now, 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:23.120 the lack of affordable housing, I would argue, is not 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:27.120 that acute. If we in Los Angeles could absorb one 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:32.120 point five million undocumented workers in the last two years 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:34.560 and none of them are on the street, they're not 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.200 on the street, how bad could the housing? Probably I 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.640 wanted to have million people found housing, all right, But okay, 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.040 we all agree there's a shortage of affordable housing. That 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:49.280 is a separate and distinct issue from homelessness. Homelessness is 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.239 the result of the dismantling of the mental health system 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:56.480 of the state that resulted in the patients pouring out 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.440 onto the streets, the prisons and the nursing homes. We 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:01.800 have now wish them out of the prisons, they're on 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.959 the streets. And then we've made the problem more acute 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.200 by legalizing drugs and drug trafficking, So all the other 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:11.440 addicts in the country are homeless. Headed it all way, 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.320 that's homelessness, and it is killing justin l A county 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:20.079 three people a day. Would you would you body count 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.280 need to be everybody before we do something about this? Right? 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:27.360 Would you agree that it's useless to discuss homelessness unless 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:32.520 we start breaking down percentages of the drug addicted, the 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.920 mentally ill, the mentally ill, and drug drug addicted guys 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.800 who are just bums, they're just dropouts, they'd rather not work, 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:43.920 et cetera. There are probably that latter category is about 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:48.080 ten percent, and even those a majority of probably taking math. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.400 So it is. You know. Look, I was up in 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:53.040 Sacramento about a month ago. I went on the streets, 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:54.640 I went around with the cops. I talked to all 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.000 the homeless, and they all told me the exact same thing. 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:05.280 The cops and the homeless using mess on a regular basis. 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:10.440 And these were unprompted ad hockey interviews with homeless and cops, 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:13.600 and they, you know, on the streets of Sacramento, they 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.080 all said the same thing. When I go out in 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.039 the Los Angeles, I asked what percentage you're doing drugs, 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:23.240 they'll say somewhere between six. You go downtown in downtown 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.560 on skit Row, and it's higher and the mental health 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:30.200 issues are much more acute. This is unconscionable. No other 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.320 country on Earth doesn't take care of people with brain diseases. 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.080 It's too much, it's too much. I can't even believe 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.560 what I'm seeing. This is a population I served for 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.479 thirty years. I know exactly what's going on. I know 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.479 exactly what can be done for them, and I know 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:46.920 exactly how well they can do. And I know those 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.280 that need chronic custodial care. We have to get realistic 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.400 about this well, and I just did. I became aware 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.040 of this for the first time just a couple of 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:01.760 months ago. The trends, the almost crazes in mental health 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.400 care that happened during the twentieth century, including zyra calls 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:09.320 late fifties, early sixties, that there was this this craze 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:14.440 that the community mental health centers could take care of 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.960 the mentally If you want to read it, that's exactly 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:19.920 where we went off the rail. It was in It 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.200 was a guy named Robert Felix, an unelected official, who 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.520 got the ear of President Kennedy and got him to 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.839 sign the Community Mental Health Hack, which was designed to 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.680 eliminate institutions for the care of the mentally ill, because 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.880 in the mind of these social engineer whack jobs, there 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.680 were three psychiatrists that ran the National Student Mental Health 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.920 for forty years, non elected officials. None of them had 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.120 ever been in One of them only had been in 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.400 a state mental hospital, none of none of them had 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:51.200 ever been in it. The rest of them watched One 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.320 Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and thought they were watching 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:57.359 a freaking documentary. They were not. And they decided to 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.200 dismantle the system, and that their goal was to create 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.479 these community mental health centers who were going to quote, 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.280 prevent mental illness. So no provisions for what to do 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.120 with those pouring out of the state hospital, some ill 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.359 conceived plan which we still don't know how to do 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:14.880 to this day prevent mental illness. They were going to 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.160 be social engineers. The excesses of psychiatry in the fifties 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.120 and sixties on that side and what they did to 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.920 the patients that were in institutions unconscionable. So laws were 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.440 put in place in the sixties and seventies that were 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.520 a backlash to that. Those laws are approaching one hundred 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:33.680 years of age, they are at least sixty or seventy 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.960 years old, they're anachronistic, and they're the barrier to the 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.280 ability to treat the patients today. It was a reaction. 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.400 I get it. I'm not apologizing or excusing the excesses, 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.200 but those laws are the barrier right now, and they're 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.920 they're they're approaching a century old. We've learned a little 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.000 bit about how brains work and how to treat them, 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.880 and that's sixty seventy years. It's time we changed the 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:02.240 laws that's going to be necessary to address this problem. 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.480 Why does it seem I mean, we're talking about the 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.120 seventies when a lot of these laws were passed, and 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.920 they were reaction to the cruelty of some of the 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:11.920 first half of the twentieth century mental health care. But 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.360 why is it seems so much worse on the streets 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:19.400 in the last ten years. That is that is right. 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:21.720 First of all, there's Newton people in mental illness every day. 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:26.680 They gradually strangulated the definition of gravely disabled. So so 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:29.679 you can't bring people into a facility for treatment unless 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.960 they say they're going to kill themselves or kill somebody else. 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:33.680 And if on the way in they go I was 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.360 just kidding, they can. They're only allowed to ask two questions. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.080 You know where to get food? Yeah, there's an Arby's 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:39.760 over there. You know where you're gonna live? Yeah, I've 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:42.600 got a tent at the underpass on Highland. That's it. 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:44.680 You have to let them go at that point. So 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.920 the notion of assembly being gravely disabled, having losing their 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.760 legs from infection, lying in the street, you can't touch them. 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.040 They they not only do you not touch them, you 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.440 can't touch their belonging. So one of the one of 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.440 the phenomenon of the chronically psychotic patients is they will 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:03.440 hold their duels and urine. Can't touch that, can't touch anything. 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.040 They're intended to do whatever they want, man, and that 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.720 is killing people. It is ridiculous that we don't have 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.800 gravely disabled anymore. There's a bill in Sacramento, s B sixty. 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:19.200 State Senator Um Morlock has brought families up there by 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:21.880 the dozen saying, please help us. We are loved ones 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:23.880 on the street. We have resources, we have doctors, we 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:25.680 have a bed to put them and will nourish them. 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.440 Help us get these people home. They're told to take 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:33.079 a hike. It's it's morally reprehensible what our legislator is 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.120 doing in Sacramenty. It's truly reprehensible. We got a heartbreaking 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:38.640 letter from a listener with a son in exactly that 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:44.800 position today. Yeah, hey, listen, you mentioned California's Prop forty seven, 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:46.240 And I know from reading some of this have you 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.679 written you're as staunchly critical of it as us. Why 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:51.600 don't she explain for folks what it was and why 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.320 you think it relates to our problem. I'm actually probably 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.800 not as critical of you, because I'm very sympathetic to 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.480 the idea that these people do not belong in prison. 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:04.400 Drug addicts don't belong in prison. They belong in mandated 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:08.440 treatment that is not prison, that is life saving intervention. 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.400 Drop for seven was an attempt to deal with the 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:16.079 excessive uh imprisonment of the drug addicts. Instead, they made 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.600 drug use and drug trafficking essentially a misdemeanor. And you 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.360 give drug addict a misdemeanor citation, are you ever going 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:24.880 to see them again? No? So it's a zero. It's 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:27.760 a zero. You're also allowed in Prop. Fifty seven to 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.440 steal nifty dollars a day misdemeanor, so they can traffic 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.160 their drugs, use their drugs, steal the support the habit, 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:37.880 unencumbered by law enforcement who have just given up. They 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.439 don't even You just watch it at a target that 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.000 someday and watch people walk right past the cashier. It 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:47.480 happens all day long because law enforcement can do nothing. 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.120 Citing them does nothing, So we have to create some 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.480 kind of mandated treatment system. Otherwise you are murdering these people. 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.320 These are make no mistake about it. People that defend 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:01.240 Prop for seven are murderer. I've been dealing with drug 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:06.040 addicts for thirty years. This is active killing of drug addicts. 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.040 You can't allow an addict to use unencumbered and not 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.760 expect them to die. It's a fatal illness. We know that. 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:17.040 So anyone that defends the status quo is a murderer period. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:21.800 Just because we're acting as enablers as a society, it's 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:26.080 worth an enabling it's it's actually an active encouragement of 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:30.840 the progression of a fatal illness rather than intervening in 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:33.400 a way that and by the way, if they wanted 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.080 to say, hey, you know what we're gonna do. We're 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.680 gonna create nursing homes where nurses administer the heroine and 0:10:38.679 --> 0:10:41.600 the amphetamine all day long, we keep them safe. If 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.959 they want to do that, fine, go do that. I 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.040 wouldn't even object to that. But if you're just letting 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:50.120 addicts run unencumbered, they die. So if you have to 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:51.400 do one or the other. You have to all the 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.160 way and start administering the substance to them in a 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.679 controlled environment, or you have to intervene. And trust me, 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:02.320 having dealt with thousands homeless drug addicts, they're way happier 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:04.520 when you get them so their way, they and they 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.800 can be great. In fact, I have people in the 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:08.800 Department of Justice that I'm working with right now who 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.840 are recovering homeless drug addicts. It's not that unusual. It happened. 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.439 It's tough, it's time consuming, it takes a lot of resource, 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:17.760 and a lot of structure, and a lot of a 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.800 lot of sort of damocles over their head all the time. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.480 But they do fine. So for God's sakes, everybody, let's 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.560 let's let's get realistic here and where. Why aren't they 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.920 listening to clinicians. This is the mystery of me that 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.640 you have a mental health and open air asylum and 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.280 then refuse to consult with people that work with them 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.199 too much. So I don't I've never understood this completely. 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.400 There's there's mental illness like my son's got um, you know, 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.120 just it's it's something that happens that you didn't make 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.319 any life choices that brought this on your or whatever. 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:52.800 And then there's ruining your brain from drug use. Can 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:54.920 you fix somebody's brain who's ruined it from drug use? 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.199 Are they just an award of the taxpayer at that 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.280 point or what do we do with them? It's a 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:02.320 great question. So that it's let me answer your question, 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.199 and then I'm going to give you a corollary issue. 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:10.160 One is about three quarters of the time the even 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:14.000 the psychotic drug user will reconstitute. There was some crazy 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:17.040 data that just came out, however, that shows if your 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:22.560 psycho psychosis was induced by either cannabis or methamphetamine, you're 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:26.719 actually more likely to stay and remain psychotic from cannabis 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.640 then amphetamine. This was shocking data to me. So both 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:34.400 drugs are inducing psychosis, but one actually is more likely 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.440 to be a long term problem. Now, the issue of 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.320 a spontaneous mental illness, which are about one percent of 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.000 the general population, We're always going to have this. It 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.800 is a phenomenon. It just a brain gets sick, just 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:52.040 like hearts. And when that happens and we don't treat it, 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.440 you can lose people forever. If you treat it early 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.720 and aggressively, they can do very well and actually return 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:02.680 to a product of life. Weirdly, in this in the 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.120 state of California, if somebody has a dementia and as 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:10.360 confusion and hears voices and is delusional and you don't intervene, 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.240 you're guilty of abhuse with schizophrenia with the same exact 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.080 symptom complex or you can't touch them, You're not allowed 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.120 to touch or go near them. And the schizophrenia is 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.559 the circumstance in which you can change the course of 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.959 the illness by intervening. Dementia intervening does nothing, and yet 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.960 that's the one that we have to intervene on. It's insane. 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:34.520 It's insane from a clinical perspective. And and look, listen, 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.320 you you hear what the case I'm building here. People 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:43.640 that defend the status quo are defending ruining lives and 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.840 killing people. It's a genocide and these people are defending it. 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.439 It's too much. I wake up every day beside myself 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:54.120 thinking about this because I know during the day three 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.400 more will die, justin l A County. Well, the case 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:00.680 you just built, the comparison between schizophrenia and UH and 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.480 dementia is incredibly powerful. Who are you? Who are you 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.400 pushing against who is saying no, Drew, You're wrong on that, 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:10.720 or is anybody just The only person that really is 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:14.959 listening is Ben Carson, and he's he's coming, He's coming. Uh. 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:17.600 Some of the immediate advisers to the President who listened 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.040 very carefully, and they're looking for ways to pull levers 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.960 to try to make things better. Catherine Barger, Eli County 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.840 Boarder Supervisor chair here in southern California, listening carefully and 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:32.000 taking a deliberate action. Everybody else, well, even when they 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.600 start to talk about mental health with I'm I'm happy 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:38.440 that meyr Steinberg and Sacramento has begun to talk about 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.800 it well, then mention it and back into a conversation 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.920 about affordable housing, and that to me, I just I 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:47.840 jumped out of my skin. I can't stand even to 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:49.960 listen to it when I hear that, because yes, go 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:54.720 go deal with affordable housing. Do not contaminate that topic 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.560 with the topic of homelessness. It's a contamination and it's 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:01.880 reprehensible for them to do it. It's clearly a moral 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.960 failing on their part, and they need to change or 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.240 this problem is not getting better. So let me tell 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.120 you what we gotta do. Are you ready all right? 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.800 We gotta pass s six forty and re established the 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.760 idea of gravely disabled, so we can bring gravely disabled 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:22.360 people to care like every other country on Earth. Number one. 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.360 Number two, we need to expand conservative ship are three. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:30.520 We need a directive to physicians when there's a psychiatric diagnosis, 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.880 just like we have a directive to physicians when there's 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.400 a medical diagnosis. There are circumstances in which the brain 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:40.560 stops working due to metal or medical or psychiatric conditions. 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:43.840 In medicine, we do it as a matter of professional 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.200 mandate called the pulse form. We need the same thing 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:52.640 for psychiatric care. So when somebody does decompensate, which is 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.400 inevitable and most psychiatric illnesses, we are directed to go 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.960 in and take care of them. We need to build resources, right, 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.680 We need these in particular intermediate residential care, not housing 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:06.280 treatment centers. Call it what you will. We used to 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:09.240 call them psychiatric hospitals. Let's call them something different, let's 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.000 call them life centers, whatever you want to call them. 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:15.640 But the the Social Security Administration and Department of Health 0:16:15.640 --> 0:16:19.080 are in the way, so it takes years of paperwork 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.840 to get past them. Plus sequel the environmental protection laws 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:25.360 that I don't know how you get around them, maybe 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.320 declaring emergency. They need to be swept aside, and in 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.040 a year you can have thousands of events with them 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.000 in place. It's going to take may never happen. So 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.080 these are some of the things that are simple, simple. 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:42.040 Our legislator legislature in Recramento could do it. Now they're 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.360 not doing it. They're not doing it, and it's it's reprehensible. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.480 Dr Drew Pinsky and listen, Drew will have links to 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:50.280 the some of the stuff you've written at Armstrong and 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.480 getty dot com. So folks can go over it again 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.400 and get a little more acquainted with it. But keep fighting, 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.240 a good fighting. Let us know how we can help. Huh, 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.160 we're just talking about it. Help and again, don't don't 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.800 don't fall for the rhetoric. The rhetoric is so ill 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.240 placed and so loose base. It's it's about modifying forty seven, 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:13.879 it's about repealing fifty seven. It's about expanding conservatorships, it's 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.960 about six disabled, it's about resources for people that need 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:22.320 mental illness that we've been ignoring for close to seventy years. 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:26.040 And it's costing lives on a daily basis. Listen, if 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.159 Corona were killing three people in Los Angeles on a 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.400 daily by basis, you don't think we would take action immediately. 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.680 Come on, everybody's get with it. Wow, good stuff, Dr 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.560 Drew Pinsky, Thanks Drew. Good to talk to you. There's 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:41.080 an interesting point in the coronavirus. Yeah, and he's right, which, Yeah, 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:42.919 if three people got it at all, it would be 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.960 in the news, let alone dying from it. You know, 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.320 I appreciate what he said about the affordable housing thing. 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.160 That is an issue, but it's not this issue. I'll 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.199 never understand that. How do you how do you not 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.240 move if you can't afford to live somewhere? I just 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:57.320 don't understand how you just don't go somewhere else cheaper. 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.520 And again it's a different question completely to in question 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.879 then the You know, it's obviously a mental health problem. 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:09.400 Spend Spend ten minutes among the homeless, and you'll understand 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.720 it's a drugs and mental health problem. I just but 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:18.639 government gets power by passing money through itself. So how 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.160 mare's a hell of a lot more money in housing 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.960 than there is in fixing a schizophrenic Well, that's what 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:25.679 I was gonna ask is how much of it is 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:33.080 just cynical. It can't be as much as I hate Steinberg, 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.800 the mayor of Sacramento. Um, he can't be so cynical 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:38.159 that it's just I just want the money to go 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:42.160 to my friends. No, I think it's misguided. How could 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.359 you be so misguided? Howegical? Bubbles? How could you possibly 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.080 And it seems like it plays into these people's a wheelhouse, 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.119 the compassion for drug addicts and everything like that in 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.000 the mentally ill. Why are they making it a housing thing? 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.479 I just I don't get it because that's the conventional wisdom. 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.760 I guess I'm We've been hearing that for years from 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.240 uh and this is awfully California centric. But you know 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.359 that's both Drew and us. That's what we're most acquainted with. 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:10.600 So wherever you are, you can apply this to where 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.399 you are. But um, Jerry Brown was previously the governor, 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:16.160 was always calling it a housing thing. Gavin Knewsom calls 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.000 at a housing crisis. He admits that it's also mental health. 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.440 But um, and and you just hear it all the time. 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:23.600 I don't know why in particular, but it's just time 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:27.000 to stop, just stop bringing up housing when you're talking 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:31.119 about homelessness, because his Drew put it these people and 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.119 oh he makes it. I I read something he wrote 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.439 that was really interesting. One of the primary symptoms of 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:40.000 some of the psychosis that keeps you from living a 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:42.119 normal life is that you can't recognize that you have 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.520 a problem. And then if your standard is this person 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.840 has to self report and turn themselves in and or 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:51.960 kill somebody. I mean, that's just idiotic. Is dementia comparison? 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.439 That's what it was about these people. It's he compared 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.600 it to stroke. A lot of times, when you're having 0:19:57.600 --> 0:19:59.720 a stroke, if it knocks out, I think it's the 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.320 right side of your brain. You can't comprehend that you're 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.560 having a stroke, and there's not a doctor in the 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:10.000 world even as your hand flops in your face, right, 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:14.360 And so doctors know if a patient has those symptoms 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:15.960 and says no, I don't think I'm having a stroke, 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.480 you don't send them home. You say, oh, yeah you are, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.719 and we're taking care of you. Any problems on the street. 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.159 But literally, in schizophrenia, you don't know that you have 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.520 a problem. And so anyway, well, yeah, the people I 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.440 see yelling at the cement wall. They just need an apartment. 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.640 They're not any position to self diagnose anything. They need 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.639 a tiny home. They're having a very loud conversation in 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.280 which they are in direct opposition, vehemently with the position 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:49.840 being held. But that cement wall. Yeah, well, I could 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:51.960 go on and on about um and I wish I 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:53.399 had in front of me. I gotta grab it. But 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.240 that history of mental health and mental illness care in 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.439 the twentieth century, it reminds me a little bit of 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:05.000 of the crazes that catch hold and education or it's 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:10.080 it's practically like music or fashion, like clothing. Fashion, In 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:15.680 that a particular ideology caught hold in the like fifties, 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.080 and it swept the nation. All the pros got super 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:22.280 excited about this idea of shut down the hospitals, go 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.960 into the communities and say, look, you're feeling a little stressed, 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.520 here's what you do, and that will prevent people from 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.399 becoming psychotic. It was idiotic. It was based on no data, 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.560 on no sound research. It was just a craze. And 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.919 they convinced Kennedy and his people of it, and and 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.200 they all turn them loose, and Reagan off and gets 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:45.440 blamed for closing the mental hospitals, but he was pressured 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.120 like crazy from the left to do it, and so yeah, 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.560 and and we ended up with this idiotic system that 0:21:51.600 --> 0:21:53.879 doesn't work, and now people are afraid to deal with it. 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.040 And listen, libertarian types like ourselves were a little cautious 0:21:57.080 --> 0:21:59.000 about the idea of the government stepping in and locking 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.600 you up for your own good. And oh yeah, I 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:03.639 think there's gotta be a break as well as gas 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:07.119