Civil commitment for opioid misuse: do short-term benefits outweigh long-term harms?
In response to a sharp rise in opioid-involved overdose deaths in the USA, states have deployed increasingly aggressive strategies to limit the loss of life, including civil commitment—the forcible detention of individuals whose opioid use presents a clear and convincing danger to themselves or othe...
| Authors: | ; ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2022, Volume: 48, Issue: 9, Pages: 608-610 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In response to a sharp rise in opioid-involved overdose deaths in the USA, states have deployed increasingly aggressive strategies to limit the loss of life, including civil commitment—the forcible detention of individuals whose opioid use presents a clear and convincing danger to themselves or others. While civil commitment often succeeds in providing short-term protection from overdose, emerging evidence suggests that it may be associated with long-term harms, including heightened risk of severe withdrawal, relapse and opioid-involved mortality. To better assess and mitigate these harms, states should collect more robust data on long-term health outcomes, decriminalise proceedings and stays, provide access to medications for opioid use disorder and strengthen post-release coordination of community-based treatment. |
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| ISSN: | 1473-4257 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2020-107160 |
