Model Federal Statute to Mandate State Involuntary Commitment Laws for a Year, Based on Medical Necessity, and Not on Dangerousness

 

The F.U.B.A.R. Act of 2025

Federal Uniform Behavioral Assistance and Recovery Act 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled:

Section 1. Short Title

This Act may be cited as the “F.U.B.A.R. Act of 2025”—the Federal Uniform Behavioral Assistance and Recovery Act.

Section 2. Congressional Findings

Congress finds that:
1. The existing patchwork of state mental-health and substance-use commitment statutes is fouled up beyond all recognition, leaving millions of citizens with untreated psychosis or addiction to cycle between streets, jails, and emergency rooms.
2. Severe mental disorders such as schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar disorder with psychotic features, and substance use disorders (including addiction to alcohol, opioids, or stimulants) are chronic brain illnesses that impair judgment and self-control.
3. Anosognosia, a neurological deficit causing unawareness of illness, frequently occurs in both psychotic and addicted individuals, rendering voluntary treatment impossible.
4. Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT), when monitored and enforced, restores stability while preserving liberty and dignity.
5. Inpatient treatment is essential for individuals whose non-adherence, dangerousness, or severe anosognosia or addiction makes outpatient treatment impossible or unsafe.
6. The U.S. Air Force Suicide Prevention Program (1997–2002), a mandatory treatment model, reduced suicide by 33 percent, family violence by 54 percent, and homicide by 51 percent, proving that structured, necessity-based treatment saves lives.
7. Congress, under the Spending Clause and Fourteenth Amendment, may condition federal mental-health and addiction-treatment funding on uniform, humane, and medically necessary standards of care.
8. Property-Value and Community Stability Benefit: Uncontrolled street homelessness and visible, untreated psychosis or addiction impose severe negative externalities on surrounding neighborhoods. Real-estate market data and municipal appraisals demonstrate that homes located on blocks with persistent unsheltered individuals exhibiting psychotic or addictive behavior experience 10 to 20 percent declines in market value, often rendering sale or refinancing impossible. State compliance with this Act—through clinically supervised treatment, housing stabilization, and public-safety coordination—is expected to restore neighborhood property values, expand municipal tax bases, and improve community well-being.

Section 3. Requirement for State Legislation

(a) Each State and territory shall, within one year of enactment, enact laws substantially conforming to this Act.
(b) Any State failing to enact conforming legislation within the prescribed time shall be deemed non-compliant and subject to the penalties described in Section 10.
(c) The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall publish annually a list of compliant and non-compliant States in the Federal Register.

Section 4. Model Commitment Standard

(a) Evaluation and Temporary Hold: A licensed mental-health or addiction-treatment practitioner may detain an individual for up to five (5) days upon probable cause that the person suffers from a severe mental disorder or substance use disorder and, as a result, cannot meet essential health or safety needs. A second independent practitioner shall confirm the diagnosis within that period.

(b) Outpatient Commitment Preferred: The court shall first consider Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) as the default and preferred form of commitment whenever the individual can safely receive care in the community. AOT orders shall require medication adherence, participation in substance-use disorder treatment where indicated, therapy attendance, case management, and periodic medical review. Failure to comply with AOT conditions, demonstrated clinical deterioration, relapse, or credible evidence of dangerousness shall authorize conversion to inpatient commitment without requiring a new dangerous act.

(c) Inpatient Commitment Criteria: The court shall order inpatient commitment when clear and convincing evidence shows that the person has a severe mental disorder or substance use disorder and either (i) is dangerous to self or others due to non-adherence, relapse, or loss of control, or (ii) suffers from severe anosognosia or addiction making outpatient treatment impossible. A finding of recent overt violence shall not be required.

(d) Duration and Renewal: Orders may extend up to one (1) year, renewable annually for three years and every five (5) years thereafter upon medical and judicial review.

Section 5. Definition of Anosognosia

“Anosognosia” means a medically verified neurological or psychiatric condition that renders a person with a severe mental disorder or substance use disorder unaware of their illness and incapable of voluntary, informed treatment participation. A confirmed diagnosis of anosognosia, together with serious psychiatric or addictive symptoms, constitutes mandatory grounds for inpatient commitment under this Act.

Section 6. Treatment, Rights, and Oversight

(a) Treatment Standards: All individuals committed under this Act shall receive evidence-based psychiatric and addiction treatment in the least restrictive environment consistent with safety.

(b) Due Process: Patients retain the right to counsel, independent medical evaluation, appeal, and periodic review.

(c) Progress Reporting: Facilities shall provide quarterly progress reports to the court and patient representative.

(d) Duration of Care: No person shall be discharged until a qualified treatment team certifies clinical stabilization and readiness for supervised community reintegration.

Section 7. Federal Oversight and Incentives

(a) The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall certify compliance, collect and publish data on suicide, overdose, violence, homelessness, and relapse, and establish benchmarks modeled on the Air Force’s 33 percent suicide-reduction standard.

(b) States meeting or exceeding these benchmarks shall receive performance grants for expanded psychiatric and addiction-treatment infrastructure.

Section 8. Severability

If any provision or application of this Act is held invalid, the remainder remains in effect.

Section 9. Effective Date

This Act takes effect upon enactment. States must comply within one year.

Section 10. Enforcement and Penalties

(a) Funding Reduction: Any State that fails to adopt and maintain legislation substantially conforming to this Act shall automatically lose fifty percent (50%) of all federal mental-health and addiction-treatment funding, including but not limited to SAMHSA block grants and Title XIX allocations.

(b) Restoration of Funds: Funds shall be restored prospectively upon certification of compliance by the Secretary.

(c) Administrative Action: The Secretary may issue regulations to implement this section and impose additional withholdings for continued non-compliance.

(d) Public Accountability: The Secretary shall report annually to Congress on State compliance and penalties imposed.

Before Condemning this Indonesian Infant for Chain Smoking

Try taking a tablet from an American 2 year old.

http://www.nickiswift.com/61630/whatever-happened-chain-smoking-2-year-old/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_2873873&utm_content=257

Punishment in the Management of Addiction

Punishment is a major factor in the treatment of addiction. Addiction is defined by continued use, in the face of punishment (loss of freedom, health, family, money). Therefore a greater dose of punishment is needed to help addicts.

1) People with something to lose have a higher chance of recovery, doctors, admirals, CEO's vs janitors, convicted felons, prostitutes;

2) the punishment of alcohol use and the forbearance of opiate use in Vietnam resulted in the 15% addiction rate to opiate among soldiers, and less alcohol use. Upon return to the US, with no punishment of alcohol use, and punishment of opiate use, the rate of opiate addiction in the returning vets dropped to the expected 1%. The remaining US addicts had features similar to the addict population of the US, and were more deviant than the addicts who stopped;

3) Prohibition of alcohol dropped alcohol use only 50%, its having no popular support. Yet, the benefits were great if under reported, drops in crime (except, of course, for bootlegging), drops in crashes, economic boom times, drops in the rates of death from cirrhosis, which is a reliable indicator of the rates of alcoholism (only 10% of alcoholics die of it, but it is a statistical indicator);

4) severe punishments end all addiction, in Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the old Communist China. Zero addiction. These have extreme cost benefit ratios. Yes, shoot an addict, but save the lives of a hundred who do not become addicted;

5) the threat of punishment after death also is effective, from religion. Drink, go to hell, if Muslim, Mormon, Methodist. Low rates of alcoholism, and the prevention of all its consequences.

So harsh sentencing is effective, contrary to the false propaganda of the lawyer. I am going to translate here, "evidence based." That means rent seeking, make work jobs for registered members of the Democratic Party. "Evidence based" is a form of quackery.

A review elsewhere.

NY Times Addiction Article Reports an Important Study

Ignore the left wing, big government, redistributionist propaganda. However, this study is important. Environment can alter dopamine levels in both directions.

Key point:

Michael Nader at the Wake Forest School of Medicine showed this in a study of monkeys and cocaine. When monkeys are moved from an individual cage and housed in a group, some become dominant and others assume a submissive role. For those that become dominant — meaning they get more attention, more grooming and more access to food and treats — this is a positive change. They now have more D2 dopamine receptors and are less interested in self-administering cocaine. But for submissive animals, the group setting is a stressful change, and they respond by increasing their use of cocaine.

Strikingly, the effect of environment is easily reversible: Stress the dominant monkey by returning it to a solo cage and its D2 receptors will drop — and its taste for cocaine will increase. In other words, simply by changing the environment, you can increase or decrease the likelihood of an animal becoming a drug addict.

The challenge is to translate this effect into treatment tactics for addiction rehab.

It was dogma that there was no addiction before puberty. Not so for video addiction.