Massachusetts mental health statutes dating back to 1885 provided both voluntary and involuntary civil commitment of drug addicts. A number of legislative bills from 1958 to 1963 which would have placed in the Department of Public Health authority for administering drug treatment programs failed to pass. In 1963, following the lead of California and New York, the Massachusetts legislature enacted chapter 111A of the general laws, the Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Act, which created a board, composed of the Commissioners of Public Health, Mental Health, and Correction, to establish a modest experimental program for the treatment of a person who is "so dependent upon narcotic drugs that he loses his powers of self-control and is, thereby, a danger to himself and to the public".
2.
Cohen, M.: "The New Drug Law", Boston Bar J., 72:17 (1971).
3.
Rizzo, N.D.: "The Court Clinic and Community Mental Health Interaction" (John Umstead Distinguished Lecture, Raleigh N.C., 1970). In: Unity through Diversity, N.Y., Gordon and Breach , 1973.
