Drug advertisements would argue that a community-based environment is a far better alternative to the old model of institutional dependence, and that drugs like Thorazine opened previously closed lines of communication between patients, clinics, and communities. But as the Elkton Three’s case shows, the state could still make inappropriate use of its various carceral apparatuses to detain the civil rights demonstrators in a way that was not consistent with a newfound focus on community or with the nationwide push to stop using the asylum as a receptacle.
