Inpatient treatment programs for heroin and opioid dependence can be so difficult to get into in some parts of the country that drug users who want to quit are voluntarily asking judges to lock them up — just to guarantee they'll get help.
In Massachusetts, that's happening via a 46-year-old law that was designed for family members to commit their loved ones to a locked facility when they are deemed "a danger to themselves or others" because of drug or alcohol abuse. But as more people struggling with addiction are actually requesting this sort of lockup, some are questioning whether "voluntary" court-ordered commitment for treatment of substance abuse is a good idea.
On a bench outside a Springfield, Mass., courtroom recently, a 33-year-old man looked more alert than you might expect for someone coming off a heroin binge. He'd previously been clean for two months, he said, but couldn't maintain it.
"Now I'm probably doing two bags," he said, "and it's getting me high as a kite." He still very much wants to quit, he said. NPR agreed not to disclose his name.
The man said he has been spending $1,000 a week on heroin, scaring his family and scaring himself. They're all worried he'll overdose. That's why, even though it would mean giving up his liberty for up to 90 days, he was in court that day to ask the judge to lock him away — inside a treatment program that he wouldn't be allowed to leave, far away from his dealers.
[For more of this story, written by Karen Brown, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...oin-users-request-it]
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