Opinions & Reports
CCHR Florida Applauds Florida Surgeon General for Action to Protect Children From Psychotropic Drugging
The Florida chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Florida applauds the Surgeon General and the Department of Health for taking action to protect children by recommending against the use of psychotropic drugs for childhood mental health labels such...
Chemical Restraints Are Not Care: Protecting Florida’s Seniors
CCHR Florida’s concern As President of CCHR Florida, I hear from families across our state who are deeply worried about how their elderly loved ones are treated once they are labeled with depression, anxiety, dementia, or “behavior problems.” Instead of thorough...
America Needs Honest Mental Health Reform
A recent article in Popular Information tries to cast Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Trump administration, and critics of psychiatric overprescribing as reckless zealots. That narrative is politically convenient, but it is not an honest description of what the...
CCHR QUARTERLY REPORT: Psychiatric Drug Prescribing in Involuntary Settings — What Happens When Florida Locks the Door
Executive Summary Florida's mental health law, commonly referred to as the Baker Act, gives the state the power to detain individuals for up to 72 hours of involuntary psychiatric examination. What happens to those individuals once the door to a Baker Act Receiving...
Florida Is Locking Up Kids for Profit — And We Have the Receipts
Imagine dropping your child off at school in the morning and receiving a phone call hours later telling you they've been transported to a psychiatric facility; without your knowledge, without your consent, and without any opportunity to say goodbye. This is not a...
Mental Health Reform Means Less Coercion, More Rights
America’s mental health crisis is real, but the answer is not to double down on coercion, expand forced treatment, or let federal policy drift toward a one-size-fits-all model that too often puts bureaucracy ahead of people. The recent federal tracker from KFF shows a...
The Pill That Promises Everything — But Proves Very Little
When "Feeling Better" Isn't the Same as Being Healed The recent buzz surrounding Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s call to scrutinize antidepressant prescribing practices has ignited a firestorm of passionate, deeply personal responses from Americans across the...
Pennsylvania to Florida, Acadia’s Pattern Demands Action
A shocking new series of lawsuits against Acadia Healthcare’s Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in Pennsylvania should serve as a warning to every Florida lawmaker, regulator, and parent. According to the complaints, child and adolescent patients at Southwood were...
From Courtroom to Crime Scene: What Florida’s Centerstone Scandal Reveals About Mental Health “Care”
Florida’s latest mental health scandal is not a one‑off tragedy; it is a case study in how a publicly funded system can fail both the people it claims to help and the communities that pay for it. A billion‑dollar brand, a deadly gap Centerstone of Florida is no fringe...
Veterans Deserve Truth, Not Blindfolds, Before They’re Drugged
Walk into any VA clinic or community mental health center serving veterans in Florida and you will hear the same heartbreaking themes: “I was never told,” “No one warned me,” “They just put me on more pills.” Men and women who once wore the uniform of this country are...