BILL EYES OPIOID LOCKUP
Baker, Kyes push for forced 72-hour rehab
The state’s opioid epidemic — killing as many as five people a day in the Bay State — faces a showdown on Beacon Hill today where one front-line police chief is fighting for a bill that would let medical staff lock up users for 72 hours of forced treatment.
“We need to have as many tools as possible at our disposal, and we need as many bites of the apple as it takes to get a person on the right path,” said Brian Kyes, president of the Massachusetts Major City Chiefs of Police and Chelsea’s police chief.
The American Civil Liberties Union, however, is fighting the implementation of treatment without consent.
“Massachusetts needs to respond to threats that opioids pose to people and to public health, but expanding involuntary commitment is the wrong answer,” said Matthew Segal, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “In Massachusetts, the state’s own data show that people are more likely to die — not less — if they are forced into treatment.”
Deaths from drug overdoses skyrocketed 21 percent in the U.S. in 2016, dragging down how long Americans are expected to live. The average lifespan is now 78 years and 7 months, on average.
More than 2,100 also died in the Bay State in 2016 from drug overdoses — with ODs continuing to climb last year with the final tally yet to be calculated.
To fight back, Gov. Charlie Baker is pushing a bill that would give medical professionals the power to help addicts — even if they don’t want it.
“If, in their professional opinion, a medical professional finds that someone is suffering from substance abuse and could cause harm to themselves, I think allowing someone to be held so they can be evaluated makes perfect sense,” said Kyes.
Baker filed the new bill — known as the CARE Act — in November, but today the Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery will hold a hearing on the measure. The legislation would allow clinical personnel in emergency rooms to order a high-risk user to be involuntarily transported to a treatment facility for up to 72 hours.
Segal cited a state Department of Public Health opioid overdose study, which in 2016 found that people who received involuntary treatment were 2.2 times more likely to die of opioid-related overdoses compared to those with a history of voluntary treatment and no history of involuntary treatment.
“We should be expanding community based-treatment options instead of presenting people with a false choice between involuntary commitment and nothing,” Segal said.
The legislation would also expand the types of clinicians able to perform addiction evaluations in emergency rooms and make it mandatory for hospitals to explain voluntary treatment option to addicts.
It would also authorize every pharmacy in the state to dispense Narcan, to rapidly reverse opioid overdose. All prescribers would need to use electronic prescriptions instead of oral or paper orders.
The hearing is set to start at 1 p.m. in the State House.