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.)