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# Stop the insanity
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/stop-the-insanity-editor/
- Published: 2006-02-13T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T17:15:26.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Downtown, #archive-import

*By Rick Reutter Santa Monica*

I read Ivan Smason’s letter (SMDP, Feb. 9, page 4) with some amusement. He also makes some very good points regarding Dr. Sirkin’s comments (SMDP, Jan. 24, page 4). Sirkin is only a psychiatrist, which in the constellation of medical science is not far removed from voodoo, witch doctory and the old “ooga booga” of shamanism. It is helpful for the practictioner of that field to keep this in mind. Gods they are not.

I suspect Dr. Sirkin was commenting more as a concerned citizen and Santa Monica resident, who also is, just incidentally, by occupation a member of a field that is still of some questionable medical standing and held in suspicion, quite rightly, by a number of very bright and intuitive people.

Nevertheless, anyone who spends any time walking the streets of Santa Monica and observing its denizens can identify individuals who appear to be living on the fringes of everything that is decent, who sometimes spend hours in front of a fire hydrant or lamppost conducting agitated, angry conversations and who forage through trash cans and trash bins in the downtown alleys, which they also use for makeshift bedrooms under dirty and squalid conditions.

My knowledge of human nature tells me that this is not a good or right way for human beings to live in a wealthy, ostensibly compassionate and relatively peaceful country. It disturbs the very soul of this citizen every time I time I see this, and I see it daily, week in and week out.

My knowledge of human nature also tells me that such people are “disturbed” in a rather profound way, which is not their or anyone’s fault, but a condition under which they have been forced to live, perhaps as a result of biology, perhaps as a result of some sort of profound trauma, perhaps as a result of both or other more complex, interconnected events.

I am still thinking the matter over, but I am being led almost inexorably to the conclusion that some “drastic” solution, such as the reinstitution of involuntary hospitalization and treatment, is called for. Psychiatrists will have a role to play, but other caregivers will also be intensely involved.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 13, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021306.pdf?ref=smdp.com)