Gov. Charlie Baker is defending his controversial plan to involuntarily commit drug addicts, telling lawmakers the proposal is tough medicine needed to save the lives of users who walk out of emergency rooms to hunt for another hit.
The bill, heard on Beacon Hill before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery yesterday, would let cops and medical professionals hold addicts who are deemed a threat to themselves for 72 hours before obtaining a court order.
“By the time somebody has overdosed multiple times, they are the equivalent of somebody who is right on the edge of not surviving their illness,” Baker said.
“It’s a 72-hour opportunity for them to decide to go into treatment, if they don’t take it, they can go,” Baker said. “But many people will tell you, if you talk to almost anybody in the ER community, a lot of people walk right out that door and right into another circumstance where there’s potential for overdose again.”
Lawmakers spiked a similar involuntary commitment measure in Baker’s 2016 opioid bill, and civil liberties groups are again calling for it to be cut. Baker said what lawmakers included two years ago, a mandated screening in ERs, had not “accomplished anything.”
And many on the front lines of the opioid fight are backing Baker’s proposal for police and medical professionals to be able to hold addicts for three days with an offer to enter treatment voluntarily.
The choice is clear to Arlington police Chief Frederick Ryan.
“What is the alternative? Death?” Ryan said. “We’ve seen that over and over again. It’s time a sense of urgency be brought to this crisis.”
Ryan recounted to lawmakers the story of a woman in his community who overdosed and was revived with naloxone from first responders. A week later, she overdosed again and was again revived.
“Seven hours later, 911. She was dead,” Ryan said. “This legislation would have helped save that young woman’s life.”
The ACLU of Massachusetts called the involuntary commitment measure “medically dangerous” and said it “raises serious due process concerns and wastes scarce resources that should be invested in more effective approaches to combating substance abuse disorder.”
“We don’t doubt that advocates of involuntary commitment want to help people who are struggling with addiction. But what they are proposing is not, in fact, helpful,” said Matthew Segal, the group’s legal director. “Coerced detoxification can greatly increase the risk of a fatal overdose.”
The governor stressed that addicts need more offers for treatment because while they might reject path after path to get better, it takes just one ‘yes’ to get into a program that could help them out of addiction. He said the 72-hour period gives health care workers a chance to present those options.
“These paths to treatment are going to differ. And some people are going to fail before they make it, and it’s fine,” Baker said. “I spent my whole life hearing you’re going to fail before you succeed, and that’s fine … everywhere except substance abuse, where we suddenly decide failure is failure — when it’s no different than anywhere else. You just got to get back on the bike.”
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