Quote:
Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist
For those in support of involuntary treatment, I'm curious what the goals of therapy are.
Typically, the goal of therapy is to minimize harm to the patient. Literature shows that abstinence rarely happens and abstinence is no longer a goal of therapy. It seems to me, the goal of the legislation is to make abstinence the goal of therapy. I'm just not sure how incarcerating someone would accomplish that.
Like, how does locking someone in a building stop drug seeking behavior? I'm genuinely confused how this would work. Or is this a permanent thing? Lock them up forever?
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The goal of treatment is to treat the person's addiction to fentanyl so that they don't use fentanyl (recognizing that relapses and set backs are inevitable and part of the process). Every time someone uses fentanyl, they risk their lives. That is not an overstatement.
And the whole point of involuntary treatment (as opposed to just involuntary detention) is to treat the illness (not just detain the person). I'm no expert in what that treatment looks like or how effective it is (and I certainly appreciate that treating opiate addiction is incredibly difficult), but I come back to... it must be better than doing nothing and just letting people suffer and die on the streets.
I don't know. I don't have the answers. I've spent many, many sleepless nights thinking about this. I know people who have lost children and siblings to this crisis. I've spent hundreds of hours drafting affidavits, cross-examining affiants, cobbling together arguments in facta and in court. I still don't have the answers. But, in this moment, I feel like the status quo is not acceptable.