This article seeks to shed light on civil commitment in the context of the opioid crisis, to sketch the existing legal landscape surrounding civil commitment, and to illustrate the relevant medical, ethical, and legal concerns that policymakers must take into account as they struggle to find appropriate responses to the crisis.
See, e.g., Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 179 U.S. 11 (1905).
4.
K.T.Hall and P.S.Appelbaum, “The Origins of Commitment for Substance Abuse in the United States,”Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law30, no. 1 (2002): 33-45.
5.
Id. at 37.
6.
Id. at 42.
7.
Id. at 35-37.
8.
Id. at 38-39 (citing In the matter of Adrian Janes, 30 How. Pr. 485 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1866)).
9.
NAMSDL, supra note 3, at 4.
10.
Id. at 3.
11.
Id. at 5. See also P.P. Christopher, et al., supra note 2.
12.
Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418 (1979).
13.
NAMSDL, supra note 3, at 5.
14.
L.Beletsky, E.L.Ryan, and W.E.Parmet, “Involuntary Treatment for Substance Use Disorder: A Misguided Response to the Opioid Crisis,”Harvard Health Business Blog, Jan24, 2017, available at <https://blog.content.health.harvard.edu/blog/involuntary-treatment-sud/> (last visited April 27, 2018).
Id., § 38 (proposing new § 35A after current Mass. Gen. L. ch. 123, § 35).
41.
Id., proposed § 35A (b).
42.
D. R.Wesson and W.Ling, “The Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale (COWS),”Journal of Psychoactive Drugs35, no. 2 (2003): 253-259.
43.
M. A.Schuckit, “Treatment of Opioid-Use Disorders,”New England Journal of Medicine375, no. 4 (2016): 357-368; N. D. Volkow, T. R. Frieden, P. S. Hyde, and S. S. Cha, “Medication-Assisted Therapies — Tackling the Opioid-Overdose Epidemic,” New England Journal of Medicine 370, no. 22 (2014): 2063-2066.
44.
Y.Olsen and J. M.Sharfstein, “Confronting the Stigma of Opioid Use Disorder — and its Treatment,”JAMA311, no. 14 (2014): 1393-1394.
45.
R. A.Sansone and L. A.Sansone, “Doctor Shopping: A Phenomenon of Many Themes,”Innovations in Clinical Neuro-science9, no. 11-12 (2012): 42.
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48.
D.Werb, A.Kamarulzaman, M.C.Meacham, C.Rafful, B.Fischer, and S.A.Strathdee, “The Effectiveness of Compulsory Drug Treatment: A Systematic Review,”International Journal of Drug Policy28 (2016), 1-9.
49.
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50.
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51.
Id., p. 37.
52.
O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563, 576 (1975).
53.
NAMDSL, supra note 2, p. 6.
54.
Christopher et al., supra note 2, p. 318.
55.
See Testa and West, supra note 50, at 37 (in states permitting commitment solely on the basis of substance abuse, “only 20% of psychiatrists believed that substance dependence as a diagnosis fulfilled criteria for civil commitment”).
56.
J.Fischer, “A Comparative Look at the Right to Refuse Treatment for Involuntary Hospitalized Persons with a Mental Illness,”Hastings International & Comparative Law Review29 (2005): 153, 165-167.
57.
M.Lindenet al., “Prisoners as Patients: The Opioid Epidemic, Medication-Assisted Treatment, and the Eighth Amendment,”Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics46, no. 2 (2018): 252-267.
58.
I. A.Binswanger, M.F.Stern, R. A.Deyo, P. J.Heagerty, A.Cheadle, J. G.Elmore, and T. D.Koepsell, “Release from Prison — A High Risk of Death for Former Inmates,”New England Journal of Medicine356, no. 2 (2007): 157-165.
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L.Beletsky, W.E.Parmet, and A.Sarpatwari, “Expanding Coercive Treatment Is the Wrong Solution For The Opioid Crisis (updated),”Health Affairs, Feb11, 2016, available at <https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20160211.053127/full/> (last visited April 27, 2018).
60.
See, e.g., Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480 (1980) (upholding transfer of a prisoner to mental hospital against due process challenge).
61.
Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976).
62.
See supra, at 13.
63.
See, e.g., In the Matter of G.P., 473 Mass. 112, 120-22 (2015).
