The involuntary commitment provision has been allowed for years under state law, specifically Title 47, which is used to commit people for psychiatric treatment at the state mental hospital. But until this year, the state didn't provide any funding to force alcoholics or addicts to get sober.
The Anchorage Daily News reports alcoholics are initially committed for 48 hours with a 30-day extension if ordered by a judge.
Robert Heffle, director of the new Salvation's Army Clitheroe Center near Stevens International Airport, said six people are staying at the facility beyond the court-ordered 30 days for treatment. The Clitheroe Center began treatment services in July and detox in September, and Heffle said 11 people have come through the new unit.
At the center's grand opening Wednesday, the Salvation Army presented State Sen. Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, with a plaque. He worked on the project for years, helping to piece together $1 million in state funding.
Ellis said state Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Fairbanks, who chairs the finance subcommittee for corrections, was a key supporter and the state Legislature put partisan politics aside for the project.
Melissa Stone, director of the state Division of Behavioral Health, said she used to run a private agency and was often frustrated in her efforts to save the lives of self-destructive alcoholics.
The new project will need to be assessed and clients tracked to see if it works, she said.
Nothing new about it, the ability to get a nut committed for 30 days has been around at least from the early 80's when I learned about it. And the reason they were able to use it on drunks is because many drunks become psychotic during one of their binges.
But this new thing appears to allow them to send drunks to a private treatment center and use state funds to pay for it is at best a total waste of money or perhaps even a scam like I said previously.
Remember the judge sending kids to his pals private juvenile jail in Pennsylvania and recently got busted because he was getting a kick back from him? This has the same potential. Treatment centers need some income? They just put some pressure on API via their bought politician and API farms a few out to them and state monies are used to pay for their so called "treatment".
A drunk has to be willingly to sober up and forcing him into any kind of a program is a total waste of time, energy, and in this case big money. Nothing can force the drunk to sober up but the drunk himself and no one, anywhere, in all of the history of mankind knows hows how to induce this attitude change.
And I seem to remember, just about a month ago a Peninsula hospital decided they would no longer deal with patients detained/under suspicion, with [suspected] psychiatric instability, because the State's system for dealing with those indivduals was so broken, that they were being left in isolated 'white-cell' lock-down without human contact, and *without any professional evaluation providing justifiable cause* for 5 days, even though the State's own Statutes require that such evaluation be done within 24 [48?] hours.
I'd point out that the hospital's experience, and this detention/detox facility's mandate, does not apparently require that you actually BE mentally disturbed, or dangerously alcoholic, but only that some [not professionally qualified, non-expert] authority figure *feels* that you *might be*, in order to be empowered to stuff you away for 2 [ , with State inefficiency] days.
This is a nightmare begging to happen.
COME ON PEOPLE . . . WAKE UP! Its easy to let legislation like this slide when you yourself don't drink to excess, but what if your son/daughter/wife/niece/etc. becomes a severe alcoholic and big brother wants to take them away, without consulting you as a parent or spouse, etc.
More importantly, when did we as citizens give the gov. the right to just snatch us off the street and deprive us of our liberty, absent the commission of some crime? If you all think this will stop with a few annoying alcoholics losing their liberty, you are sadly mistaken. These types of power-seizures are always disguised as "do-good" legislation, like the seat belt law or the whopper of all time, the Patriot Act. What is so very dangerous about all these seemingly innocuous pieces of legislation is the fundamental loss of the legal power to command your own body/mind.
What I am trying to say is that when we permit government to tell us whether we have to wear a seat belt or not, or force us to get sober under lock and key, we literally pass the power over our own bodies into that of our government. And guess what . . . we don't ever get it back.
We as citizens can't complain that government is too intrusive when we are so very busy handing our liberty over to it.
Yea!!!
Does this mean that they are going to start forcing and confining drunk drivers also?
So instead of letting the alcoholics out to drink and drive again they can be forced to do 30 days of detox and loose their jobs and not be able to support their familys?
Sounds fair to me. You did it to yourself.
I agree with you. The person must WANT to stop, even if they cannot. I've read the debate if this is legal or not, and honestly, I'm torn on it. I firmly believe in the rights of the individual, but I also know the damage alcoholism can do. I am for a detox center, but unless you lock them up permanently, you can't stop them from drinking if they choose to do so.
If this isn't the right idea, then what can we do? How do we get people to want to get help?
I'd agree, that this project is someone's 'candy', whether it's for a direct pay-off/kickback, or for the positive PR for "doing something with the 'right' attitude" [with State funds, even though it has a well-tested hx of failure].
In fact drinking, even alcoholism, is NOT a crime. Only some irresponsibe behavior, under the influence, can be deemed criminal. Detox can be mandated as a part of criminal incarceration for some [alcohol related] offenses, but otherwise, it must be voluntary, to be legal.
And yes, the State of AK has MANY times more alcoholics, than visable 'chronic inebriates'.
But I have to wonder how they define alcoholic far as the program goes. Just the Stereo typical alcoholic or all?
Wouldn’t it be better to address the abuse of the drug, any drug, instead of worrying about appearance?
How is that any different from providing mandatory treatment for a person experiencing a mental illness who is a danger to themselves?
The first step is helping the person sober up. No self-care can occur for a person who is chronically inebriated...Then there are many other steps that can contribute to that person's wellness: 1) Addressing any medical needs; 2) Addressing any mental health needs; 3) Addressing housing needs; 4) Addressing other needs that will contribute to the person's sober success.
Again...how is that prison?
— Julie
Let's hope he wasn't presented with a plague.
Interesting Freudian slip.
I am in total support of this program...statewide! And if laws need to be changed, so be it.
Somehow, someway, Huber and Kelly will benefit from this.
The way 47 used to work was something like this. Say a social worker in Ft.Yukon had this drunk always giving him a bad time. No sense in having him hauled off to Fairbanks on a drunk charge, he'd be out in a few days and right back home and at it again. But he could get him committed to the nuthouse in Anchorage as a mental patient for a month and out of his hair for that length of time. A much better deterrent than a weekend in the Fairbanks jail.