Rob Reiner. (Photo: public domain)
The Steep Price of Tolerance
We need to revisit institutionalizing the mentally ill before more victims are hurt, or worse, murdered
By Andy Caldwell, January 2, 2026 4:30 am
I truly feel sorry that Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered in cold blood by their own son. It doesn’t matter to me that I did not agree with Reiner’s politics.
Besides being a severe drug addict, Reiner’s son had been in drug rehab some 18 times in his life. It makes one wonder if the therapy protocols were any good or if he was, in fact, incorrigible. I was surprised that Reiner and his wife practiced tough love to some extent as they allowed their son to be homeless at some point in his life because of his poor choices and coping skills. I have spoken to several recovered drug addicts; they believe that hitting rock bottom was what saved them.
However, instead of hitting rock bottom, things got worse as it has been reported that Reiner’s son had also been diagnosed with schizophrenia. This mental disease is extremely difficult to treat. Supposedly, his doctors were adjusting his meds, and it made him worse. A significant number of the drugs used to treat mentally ill people can make them violent including self-harm and harming others. Obviously, not all people diagnosed as mentally ill are violent. But some are obviously violent and their arrest records prove it. In fact, a significant number of school shooters and other mass murderers were on such drugs.
This brings up a stunning failure in our society as it relates to the mentally ill with long arrest records and little to no time served. That is, we don’t know how to deal with these ticking time bombs. Rob Reiner is reported to have told several friends that he was afraid his son would harm him and his wife. Yet, what could he do about his fear?
We have seen one murder after another in our society, often in broad daylight and in public places, wherein somebody with a very long history of mental illness and criminal acts has been allowed to roam free on our streets creating one victim after another. Iryna Zarutska comes to mind. She was the Ukrainian refugee murdered on a light rail line in North Carolina by a suspect who had been arrested some 14 times in his life and who had served time in prison. According to his mother, around the time he was in prison he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. His parents tried to get him some help, but our system, except for some temporary holds, won’t force somebody into treatment until after they have committed a heinous crime. This is a nightmare for the families of the mentally ill, not to mention the victims of their crimes.
It has been reported that the night before Reiner and his wife were murdered, they were at a Hollywood party. It was obvious to several of the guests that Reiner’s son was out of his mind. These guests wanted to call in cops and mental health professionals and have him temporarily committed but supposedly the host refused. Reiner is dead because of the recalcitrance to call the authorities. He is also dead because we don’t have the will to deal with the mentally ill unless and until they commit such crimes. We need to revisit institutionalizing these people before more victims are hurt, or worse, murdered.
Another issue we need to deal with is how is it that our society is producing so many people that have mental health issues? As it turns out, just as we don’t force any type of institutionalization on people dealing with severe mental health problems, neither do we treat drug users as criminals. Yet, drug use is surely a public health and safety issue.
The following charts are taken from the website:
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-common-is-mental-illness/
This chart demonstrates that a significant source of mental illness has to do with drug use.
Furthermore, the prevalence of mental illness is also a function of age, including an age rife with experimentation and fraught with obvious life long consequences:
It is painfully obvious that people who are experimenting with, or routinely taking drugs, are playing a game of Russian roulette with their lives and their loved ones, along with the members of the public who end up having to deal with the ramifications and consequences of their actions and choices. Our society is paying a steep price for its pursuit of tolerance. Will we ever learn?
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This article articulates valid concerns for many of us, especially with the latest news stories as examples. The reliance on pharmaceutical solutions and failed, archaic psychiatric methods are also to blame. There is much more to this problem, as one can see here: https://www.cchr.org/
There are also solutions and it’s perhaps one more thing that would be great to improve while we have a real president in office (instead of the old puppets). Now if we could only get a real governor too…
How many millions did the Reiners pay out to “mental health experts” only to get their throats cut?
Psychiatry failed that family at every turn. Why should we be asked to subsidize the addict or their enablers? Should we be giving an utterly failed school of treatment an open invitation to warehouse and drug a virtually unlimited supply of human corpses? There’s no service to humanity in that.
At a certain point criminality and mental illness become a distinction without a difference. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but let’s get serious.
1) If you need to be medicated to get through your day, you forfeit your right to own or possess a gun. Period.
2) Make psychiatrists criminally liable for the crimes of the people they drug and “treat” then put on the streets to kill us. No more excuses. They can take the same level of responsibility as any other citizen. Your degree is not a get out of jail free card.
3) Start treating criminals like criminals. We don’t need to subsidize your dependencies.
4) The acutely mentally ill? Treat them with sedatives if that’s what they need then give them a dorm room and work to do.
Humanity has seen enough of the horrors of psychiatry when its practitioners are left to their own devices, and their subjects are left without a voice.
Andy that’s a lot of common sense on Reiner and their drug addict son. If a family is in the same boat, they should redo their will to cut the drug addict out, make it clear they did so, and change the locks on their house. This simple move would’ve also saved the Reiners.
But the same mindset of bottomless empathy powers Newsom’s homeless program. No treatment is provided, just housing – which is quickly destroyed by the addicts and ,entally ill.
It’s also a problem when we have allowed powerful Cannabis to be unleashed on our youth. It’s a fact that Cannabis is associated with the development of schizophrenia and how harmful it is to developing brains. It’s also notable that we rarely ask if these violent offenders used cannabis as they escalated to more powerful levels of drug abuse. Maybe you should look into that Andy it might surprise you and the people who support the legalization of Cannabis in our communities. God help us as the Cartels and proponents of relaxing Cannabis laws continue down their merry way to destroying our next generation and America! God Help us all!
The medications that they’re using, and that goes unnamed in this article are called SSR eyes, a.k.a. selective serotonin, reuptake inhibitors, and since the first one was marketed as Prozac over 50 years ago, it has been known that these medications could cause uncontrollable violence either directed towards oneself or towards others. This is nothing new.! And yet the medical profession and the pharmaceutical business are unable to remove them from the material Medica because so much money is being made off of them! In fact, Eli Lilly, the makers of Prozac was sued for millions of dollars by a woman who murdered her mother under the influence of Prozac and was able to be acquitted of those murder charges because Eli Lilly knew when they marketed Prozac that murder was a possibility! And here we are 50 or 60 years later, debating the value of such toxic dangerous chemicals! I’ve been in medicine as a licensed practitioner of one sort or another for over six decades and I can tell you nothing changes, no matter how many people die from these very bad drugs! Nothing until now that is! The FDA and the rest of the organizations under HHS, which Bobby Kennedy controls must be reformed completely but it’s going to be almost impossible because the big money boys refused to let happen….
I question the causality: many mentally ill people use drugs to self-medicate, it’s not a matter of the drugs driving them crazy. Institutionalization is a first step., getting the right “cocktail” after diagnosis is critical. Prozac et.al. Has helped way more people than it has harmed.
We need mental facilities and rehab facilities to be run like hospitals, not prisons. (For that matter, we need prisons focused on rehabilitation. )
Hey Andy! You haven’t asked the question about the explosion of Cannabis use which is now up to 95% THC which we now know is producing schizophrenia in users. Why aren’t you asking the question? How many of these perpetrators started their drug use with Cannabis. Now we are normalizing the use of this very destructive substance! Maybe you should start to ask that question! These horrible acts are going to accelerate as Cannabis use accelerates. We are beginning to see its effects even in senior citizens using Cannabis for medical reasons. It’s a problem but you aren’t talking about this. We better make really big facilities for the wave of schizophrenia patients rising and the Mental Health issues that this trend will bring!
Don’t be Stupid! Be a Smarty! Come and join The MAGA Party! Helter Stupid1989…Y.M.C.A! It’s fun to stay at the YMCA with Arnold Palmer’s Big Cock!
Cannabis was in the chart!!!
No doubt Reiner was involved in some very dark and unsavory activities like many in the Hollywood leftist deep state?