Dear Friends, 
Your letters are needed in SUPPORT of SB 1289 by Senator Ray Haynes.  It would prohibit California school personnel from recommending psychotropic drugs for a child.  Similar bills have already passed in several states to curb the gross abuse of children being put on addictive psychiatric drugs to change their behavior in the absence of any objective physiological evidence of a disease.

It will be heard on March 13, 2002, in the California State Senate Education Committee.  Please send a copy to each member of the committee.  Here are some sample topics.  Choose ONE, make your letter SHORT and in your own words.  If you have one, write about an example of abuse that you yourself know about personally.  Make sure your letter clearly states that you SUPPORT SB 1289.  Please email a sample copy to me at cassandra@relaypoint.net or mail it to P.O. Box 29754, Los Angeles, CA  90029.

1) These drugs are very strong.  Why are we letting the schools become a feeder for special interests?  Special interests that drug our children.

2) It is time for schools to get back to the business of EDUCATING our children.  EDUCATE-DON'T MEDICATE.

3) Our schools have been pushed into becoming laboratories for psychologists and psychiatrists.  Teachers are there to teach children, not diagnose them with phony psychiatric illnesses.  ADHD has no objective test:  there is no blood test, no observable abnormality, just a bunch of subjective characteristics based on opinion.

4)Teachers need to be using old-fashioned discipline for behavior problems not drugs!  Discipline problems require discipline-not drugging.

5) Parents should not be intimidated by school personnel into drugging their children with mind-altering, potentially brain-damaging drugs. Parents have the right to rear their own children without drugs!  This practice of school intimidation needs to STOP in California!

Here are the email addresses you can copy as a block and drop into your "BCC" line on your email program.  I cannot vouch for them all being correct, but they are the best I could do.  Faxes do get more attention, so I have also included the fax number of each member of the committee below.

senator.vasconcellos@sen.ca.gov; senator.mcpherson@sen.ca.gov; senator.alarcon@sen.ca.gov; senator.alpert@sen.ca.gov; senator.chesbro@sen.ca.gov; senator.karnette@sen.ca.gov; senator.oconnell@sen.ca.gov; senator.ortiz@sen.ca.gov; senator.scott@sen.ca.gov; senator.sher@sen.ca.gov; senator.vincent@sen.ca.gov; senator.knight@sen.ca.gov; senator.monteith@sen.ca.gov  

John Vasconcellos, Chair,   fax  916-324-0283 

Bruce McPherson, Vice-Chair,   fax 916-445-8081 

Richard Alarcon, fax  916-324-6645  

Dede Alpert  fax 916-327-2188  

Wes Chesbro fax  916-323-6958  

Betty Karnette  fax 916-327-9113  

Jack O'Connell   fax 916-322-3304  

Deborah Ortiz   fax 916-323-2263  

Jack Scott  fax 916-324-7543  .

Byron Sher  fax 916-323-4529  

Ed Vincent  fax 916-445-3712  

Ray Haynes (author of the bill)  fax 916-447-9008  

"Pete" Knight  fax 916-445-4662 

Dick Monteith  fax 916-445-0773