The Smoky Mountain Center for Mental Health is making headlines for scandalous doings. Director Tom McDevitt has stepped down amidst allegations of hiring relatives, voting himself pay raises, and dodging qualification deadlines for retirement benefits taxes. It goes to show how dotting i’s and crossing t’s can be all-consuming for government agencies. In a world with no paperwork, the system’s performance might be judged by how many clients have been prescribed inappropriate medications, how many people have been turned into “unaccountable†zombies, how many addicts aren’t getting detox, how many “cases†aren’t getting what they need to be human.
As I posted elsewhere, detox is not an initiation of force, but a reaction force to liberate minds from the control of chemicals. It should be mandatory for dually-diagnosed chronic homeless people who drug and party on weekends and collect state aid instead of employing their talents for the good of the community.
