> Do people really think that if they restrict access to methods of suicide people will magically get better? Effective mental health treatment isn't a pill th

> Do people really think that if they restrict access to methods of suicide people will magically get better? Effective mental health treatment isn't a pill that you take and get better; it's an ongoing, and often very long, process of gradual improvement. I don't think the article is proposing not treating people who are ill, and there's no suggestion in the article that the people were not receiving treatment. Since these people were based in the UK, our default assumption should be that they were receiving at least some level of treatment via the NHS. (Likely not enough, but some.) To me, the article is proposing that we should consider removing what might be a serious impediment to the effectiveness of that treatment. Let's take an example that is a little less emotive than suicide: alcoholism. People can and do recover from alcoholism. Imagine we somehow took two identical twins, both suffering from the same level of illness. One we place in a small town somewhere, where alcohol is completely absent for some reason (not banned, but functionally absent from everyday life). The other we place in the middle of New Orleans. We treat them both the same over a period of, say, three years. Which would you expect to have the better chance of recovery?