New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

The President directed the Commission to identify policies that could be implemented by Federal, State and local governments to maximize the utility of existing resources, improve coordination of treatments and services, and promote successful community integration for adults with a serious mental illness and children with a serious emotional disturbance.

[2] The commission, using the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a blueprint, subsequently recommended screening of American adults for possible mental illnesses, and children for emotional disturbances, thereby identifying those with suspected disabilities who could then be provided with support services and state-of-the-art treatment, often in the form of newer psychoactive drugs that entered the market in recent years.

[6] Opponents also assert the New Freedom initiative campaign is a thinly veiled proxy for the pharmaceutical industry to foster psychotropic medication on mentally healthy individuals in its pursuit of profits.

Opponents also contend that the initiative's wider objectives are to foster chemical behavior control of American citizens, contrary to civil liberties and to basic human rights.

[citation needed] Noting the country's services for people with mental illness and disabilities were "fragmented," the commission's final report offered 19 recommendations within six larger goals to improve service coordination, move toward a recovery model, and help all individuals with mental illness and disability recover: Opponents of the plan see little in the way of potential benefits from the plan, except increased profits for pharmaceutical companies, and have concerns about the potential for unnecessarily causing neurological damage and contributing to increased substance abuse and drug dependence.

Using celebrity to advance their opposition, the MindFreedom coalition has again enlisted the support of longtime member and Gesundheit Institute founder Patch Adams, a medical doctor made famous by the movie that bears his name.

The bill, which died in committee, would have forbidden federal funds from being used for any mental health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of parents.

Through the guise of TMAP, critics contend, the drug industry has methodically influenced the decision making of elected and appointed public officials to gain access to citizens in prisons and State psychiatric hospitals.

He further claimed this alliance was "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."