Mass. Lawmakers Review Closure Of Drug Abuse Center

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.