From The Washington Post: In Massachusetts, which has one of the highest rates of opioid deaths nationally, addiction-related civil commitments have doubled in the past decade. However, civil commitment poses a number of ethical issues, and there is no evidence that it is effective in treating addiction.
“Those who believe that civil commitment is being overused say opioid use is not reason enough to take away a person’s liberty. Others contend that people should only be held for shorter periods of time. Still others reject any application of involuntary treatment on the view that if a person chooses to misuse opioids, and is not a danger to anyone else or to civil order, he or she should bear the consequences of that decision.”
