Celebrities, Parents, Legislators and Civil Rights Groups Win Victory for Children's Rights with Passage of the "Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment"

December 3rd, 2004 - Los Angeles—Celebrities Lisa Marie Presley, Kelly Preston, Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman and Juliette Lewis joined the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog established by the Church of Scientology, in applauding Congress for passing precedent-setting legislation that bans school personnel forcing parents to drug their children for classroom or behavioral problems. In order to receive federal funds under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), the "Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment," was signed into law by President Bush today and requires schools to implement policies that prohibit schoolchildren being forced onto psychiatric drugs as a requisite for their education.

Hundreds of parents across America have been pressured to put their school-aged children onto cocaine-like stimulants or antidepressants for which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just ordered a "black box label" warning of the drugs' high risk of causing suicide among children and adolescents. Ms. Kelly Preston, who met with members of Congress in June last year to enlist support of the amendment, said, "Every mother has an inherent right to protect her child from harm. However, many mothers have been denied that right because psychiatrists have inundated unwitting teachers with the false opinion that educational and behavioral problems are symptoms of 'mental disorders' that require mind-altering drugs. This law gives hope for a new era in education, one where teachers are free to work with parents to find academic solutions instead of unworkable and harmful psychiatric treatments that benefit no one but the psychiatric industry."

Many groups supported the amendment, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Foundation of Women Legislators (NFWL), Parents for a Label and Drug Free Education, as well as numerous state and federal legislators.

Bruce Wiseman, the U.S. President of CCHR says, "Psychiatrists did not want to let go of their stronghold of American schools and launched massive counter efforts to kill this legislation. However, people are waking up to the fact that psychiatric 'mental disorders' have absolutely no scientific/medical validity and that psychiatrists falsely portray them as a disease or physical condition to convince teachers and parents that these are medical issues, which is a complete fraud. Psychiatric 'disorders' are simply checklists of behaviors—symptoms presumed to be related—and voted by members of the American Psychiatric Association to be included in their insurance billing bible, the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This has been used to justify the administration of dangerous drugs to more than 8 million children. Parents and teachers were never informed about documented side effects of many of these drugs, including suicide, violence, mania and psychosis."

CCHR says the next step in educational reform is to remove psychiatric and psychological testing and screening from schools which are the feeder lines to psychiatrists who have made turning schools into mental health clinics a business. Millions of students are now dependent upon psychiatric drugs or are taking them illegally. CCHR, joined by scores of parents and civil rights groups, say the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health's recommendations for mandatory mental health screening in school is a frightening representation of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which Huxley describes a controlled "utopian" civilization achieved with the "technique of suggestion—through infant conditioning and, later, with the aid of drugs." While the "Prohibition on Mandatory Medication Amendment" will help prevent some of psychiatry's propensity to drug all normal childhood behavior, many charge that the spurious sounding "Freedom Commission on Mental Health" and its recommendations will open another door to dangerous conditioning leading to massive increases in psychotropic drugging of a new generation.

Dr. Julian Whitaker, director of California's Whitaker Wellness Center warns that the motive behind mandatory mental health screening of children is obvious: "That means drugging them!" For psychiatry, this means, "52 million potential customers." He offers this advice to parents: "First of all, refuse to sign those consent forms when they come home from your child's school—if they can't test them, they can't drug them."