Mass. Lawmakers Review Closure Of Drug Abuse Center

By Deborah Becker (WBUR)

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Brockton District Court has one of the highest number of cases involving mental health in Massachusetts. That includes cases where someone asks a judge to involuntarily commit a loved one for substance abuse treatment. It’s called having someone “sectioned” or “sectioned 35″ — named after the state law that allows civil commitments for those who won’t get treatment on their own.

It happens as often as eight times a day in Brockton, when the judge must ask a state psychologist for an emergency recommendation.

One option for judges is to send a person into treatment for 30 days. For the men and women not considered too dangerous to themselves or others, the court can send them to a Department of Public Health facility or to private treatment.

But for men whose loved ones ask the court to civilly commit them in a secure facility, there is only one place to go: the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center, or MASAC, in Bridgewater.

Retired Brockton District Court Judge David Nagel said that, in his two decades on the bench, the cases involving these families were among the most difficult:

“When you see them come in or read the affidavits and look at the absolute devastation on their faces when they come in,” Nagel said. “They look at you and say, ‘You’ve got to do something.’ ”

Most of the time, Judge Nagel would send these men to MASAC. It’s an 100-bed lockdown facility in the Bridgewater Correctional complex, run by the Department of Correction. It’s protected by barbed wire and fencing, and guarded by correction officers.

But it’s not a prison and those sent there are not necessarily facing any criminal charges. Correction officials say that because of budget cuts they can no longer afford the roughly $6 million a year it costs to run MASAC, so the center will close Nov. 6.

Judge Nagel said that essentially means state law cannot be followed.

“This is gonna create chaos, I think,” Nagel said. “It’s everybody’s responsibility to follow the statute and the statute is clear: You must help these people. It’s up to the legislative and executive branches to make sure this is adequately funded.”

A Department of Corrections spokeswoman said most other states don’t have similar Correction-run facilities, and existing public health treatment centers will be able to accommodate the men who would have gone to MASAC. She issued a statement saying correction is working collaboratively with the Departments of Public Safety and Health on a backup plan for once the center closes.

But DPH is already warning that it can’t help. In a letter to correction officials this month, Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach said that although his department opened a new treatment center for men in January, it’s already full. And he said his agency cannot absorb the estimated 50 extra addicts who would need services each month.

“I understand budget cuts. I understand there’s an economic crisis,” Auerbach said. “But they shouldn’t just close a place without a back-up plan.”

Joanne Peterson runs the support group Learn To Cope, for addicts’ families. She had her son sectioned — twice. “No one can prevent what an opiate addict will do to get their next fix,” Peterson said. “They’re gonna be robbing, stealing, overdosing and dying.”

Last year, more than 2,500 men were treated at MASAC. Among them was 26-year-old David Gonzalez of Taunton, who has been addicted to heroin and cocaine since he was 15. But Gonzalez says he’s been drug free since he left MASAC.

“It’s kinda like a prison setting, but you adjust to it,” Gonzalez said. “There’s hundreds of people just like yourself there, living the same lifestyle. Ages range from 18 years old to 76 years old. I was sectioned with a guy who was an eye surgeon. You can kinda see what’s gonna happen if you — if I kept living the lifestyle I was living, I would either end up going to prison for a long time or I would end up dead.”

That’s what worries state Sen. Steven Tolman:

“We’re losing citizens of Massachusetts at a rate of 42-1 as to what we’re losing at war on our streets from heroin and Oxycontin,” said Tolman, who chairs the state commission on heroin and Oxycontin. He’s among those scheduled to testify Thursday when the Legislature’s mental health and substance abuse committee holds a hearing on MASAC’s proposed closure.

“We do not have the proper infrastructure to treat this level of addiction and one of the key components is MASAC,” Tolman said. “Yet, somehow, somebody in this administration in their infinite wisdom thinks we should close it. Frankly its an outrage.”

Correction officials have already postponed MASAC’s scheduled closing once. Sen. Tolman wants the governor to put it off for at least another 90 days until there is an alternative place for judges to send the men they order into treatment.