According to HuffPo, Lindsay Lohan was clean for illicit drugs (leaving aside her laundry list of prescribed meds) and alcohol (but for one .03 reading) during her last six screenings. She was violated on her probation for missing the alcohol education classes the court had compelled her to attend. As a result, she was sentenced to 90 days in jail, followed by three months more in residential rehab.
I'm sensing that LL -- who has some experience with alcohol education and substance abuse treatment as practiced in the U.S. -- doesn't want to go back to these programs. And, absent any drug or alcohol intoxication, what is the justification for forcing her to do so? Aren't education and treatment meant to serve a therapeutic purpose? If LL hasn't been using, what exactly is she being educated about and treated for?
Now, don't go quoting me in support of LL's tweets about the court's violation of her human rights -- but doesn't she have a point? If she's not getting drunk and stoned, let alone doing these things and driving, what is the court's interest in her incarceration and compulsory stay in a program for active addicts and alcoholics?
All right, I've made my point. But who would really stand up for that poor, insolent tweedle brain? She isn't political; she's not a feminist; she's not helping underprivileged or seriously ill or developing world children (or was she?), so who cares about her human rights? Anyhow, Dr. Drew says 90 days of treatment after her 90 days in jail is just what Lindsay needs.
The serious point: In our modern therapeutized, diseasified society, even liberals (as represented by HufPo readers and Dr. Drew) think it's fine to mandate people into treatment based on - the court's? the public's? the Betty Ford Center's - decision that they need it, even when they are not abusing the substances their abuse of which is the basis for their treatment.
(P.S. Thanks to Paul Whittaker for the title and idea.)
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Makeup classes were disqualified to ensure conviction. A political, kangaroo court judgement.
Court court have required Rehab from Prescription mood meds like her Father Suggested, but instead the Appeal process is likely to ensure the Judge and States Attorney Movie Star status:(
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Lawyer showed evidence of flexible schedule permission, and successful makeup of classes. Judge disqualified several because they were In-group and not One-on-One.
Disclosed two of her missed alchohol classes, were due to her participation in a Haiti fundraiser hosted in London.
Disclosed in probation report that Doctors had hooked her on uppers to work, downers to sleep, years ago.
Eventually needs to detox from these PRESCRIBED mood meds beause they impair judgement and reduce the fear instinct.
Cali Doctors hookem, and the Lawyers bookem!
Let's try wording it this way:
Ask Michael Jackson how safe it it to take prescription med cocktails. We owe it to Lohan and ourselves to intervene, radically if necessary. Otherwise we are not much of a society.
You are also right (probably) that the court sentence will likely not affect her prescription med use. My argument is that addressing the illegal drugs without also evaluating the prescription drug usage does her absolutely no good, and the cycle of abuse will continue. Prescriptions are far too easy to obtain to assume that all of her prescribed drugs are medically necessary. It would require an extraordinary ruling by the court to make that type of evaluation happen, I know.
Finally, I would applaud the proposal that she attend your center. I know that you and your staff would do everything possible to help her.