I’m wondering if he is associated in any way with Scientology, as his anti-mental health position aligns with their views. Hollywood FL isn’t that far away from Clearwater, after all.
I believe that, as a drug, it’s prohibited by zero-tolerance policies.
There’s a well-documented, national mental health crisis affecting miidle-and high school students and that bobble-headed sex-trafficker decides that the best way to address it is to further stigmatize treatment? Yeah, it tracks.
A related thought:
If Kacsmaryk’s absurd mifepristone ruling is allowed to stand, it won’t be long before the GOP weaponizes it to remove other medications from the market. Slate has a good explainer here:
Who wants to bet viagra stays readily available?
ETA the correct Slate link and typos
And this, before he moves on to more ‘final’ solutions.
(I know the Bellamy salute wasn’t fascist, but bringing it back now should be unthinkable. Unfortunately we didn’t end up in that timeline.)
You left out evil. That’s a huge ingredient here. Straight up, unadulterated evil. It’s the magic sauce for their shitburger.
Also by look-alike rule. We have had kids selling tylenol pills billed as opioids or what have you. And, as discussed in another thread, the placebo effect can lead to some very stoned-looking kids who are on nothing. The ED visits lead to tox screens showing low level acetaminophen and nothing else.
Scientologists are not the only one who are “anti-psychiatry”. The far right has a pretty deep well of people who just reject all forms of authority for it’s own sake… including and especially scientifically-based medicine. If it comes out of America’s “woke-iversities” it must be bad… Unless it’s Tucker Carlson, then it’s fine… 
Personally, I’ve not heard of any evidence linking him to them… he’s just chumming up the water for his rabid, right wing base most likely.
Good Lord, and how. I have gritched previously about the destruction of our (previously rickety) mental health infrastructure. We currently cannot get kids in with counselors or therapists without a 3-6 month wait at best. We have psychiatrists who will not see kids who are suicidal because “they are too severe and need in-patient care.” Which would be great, if such were an option. VA has closed somewhere around 1/2 of our inpatient adolescent psych beds due to lack of staffing, because nurses can make a hell of a lot more money, and not have to deal with potentially violent, threatening teenagers, if the take a traveling nurse gig. We have had a number of really good counselors retire early for their own mental health. Anyone who thinks the “end” of the covid crisis will end these issues is out of their mind. And further stigmatizing the kids who are already at highest risk, which seems to be the goal of every damn fascist out there, is not helping! Yes, I am ranting. It’s not a sustainable situation.
Alongside that drop in qualified therapists there is, I’m sad to report, a rise in sketchy “counselors” of varying description. We turned to one such in desperation after being waitlisted or refused by too many psychiatrists and clinical psychologists to count; when my anxious, depressed kid was diagnosed with a chronic illness and turned to that person for support, the wisdom she received was: “Someday, when you are older, you will understand all this.”
Sage advice. The icing on top was that insurance didn’t cover the treatment, though with pearls like that, it’s hard to blame them.
Making all sorts of unwarranted assumptions there. Damn it, I am so sorry you had to go through that. It’s emblematic of where we are right now, though. There are some decent on-line counselling options, but no way to vet the one you get. I hesitate to recommend an unknown quantity, especially to a very vulnerable population. There really is no good answer right now. Our psych people basically throw it back to us and say we need to figure out how to deal with it. I am not trained in counselling, but I seem to do an awful lot of it. And I am given 10-15 minutes to do so. Not sustainable at all.
Area predator wants to systematically separate those from the herd he thinks he can prey on easier.
All his and any RW stooge’s word salad about mental health, pills and “trauma” has a specific goal: Closing public schools, discrediting teachers and public education and creating a culture of privatized krischin schools for the great en-dumb-ening they seek. 2 birds: More $ to evangelico-capitalists and stupider populations for easier control.
Yeah, it’s awful to see your kid suffering and not be able to offer real help, though obviously counseling is only one part of a larger support strategy. Then to have a f*ckwit like Gaetz suggest stigmatizing at-risk kids? Well, they say that the personal is political and I’m taking that very personally. Incandescent rage doesn’t really encompass my feelings.
I’ll stop derailing the thread now. Cheers.
See also “life coaches”. Seems to be the big new thing among the homeschool and homeschool-adjacent set. Overheard one telling a parent that it’s just like going to a psychologist but much faster because life coaches can draw in their own personal experiences to tell you what to do to fix yourself.
Umm, no.
Thanks - how depressing it must be to be a child or teacher these days.
I think the gop’s real actual strategy for winning the youth vote is to kill off as many of them as possible and terrorize the rest into paralysis.
Yeah… life coaches. It is a bustling job among coke addicts here in this city I tell you that. You can make a metric fuckton of money telling sad people whatever you want to tell them and feel like a hero too… if you’re the kind of person who can get into a state where you believe God is taking through you… Which a lot of people can… Whether it be shaman or Jesus flavored…
And I have heard sometimes it even helps people…
I once needed a referral for mild depression in the mid-90s, and I had to first see a person who I think was a contractor with my husband’s HR peeps. Instead of the referral, I got weird questioning and finally her helpful suggestion that maybe if I wore makeup I’d feel better.
I should note that the application of her own makeup was just shy of Tammy Faye Baker, and I made sure to tell her why I thought her “advice” was not as helpful as she thought it might be.
sorry you went through that.
that woman’s response sounds like she wanted to get you in her Mary Kay clique and sell you make up. you know, for your well being.
