People of California, especially anyone who requires antidepressants or other medicine and their relatives, need to sign a petition to their state legislature to allow retrained psychologists to write psychotropic prescriptions. Right now, the states of Louisiana and New Mexico, as well as the US Military, Guam and American Indian reservations have given retrained psychologists the ability to prescribe mental health medicines for last 10 years.
Why is this important?
There is a shortage of psychiatrists in California. 85 percent of psychological prescriptions are written by General Practitioners, because there are not enough psychiatrists available to people. Many primary care providers depend on psychologists to recommend a psychotropic drug. Retrained psychologists need to be allowed to write prescriptions .
