Attraction Not Coercion –
May 29, 2018 – Mandatory treatment is defined as “treatment ordered, motivated, or supervised under the criminal justice system.” Going beyond the more common drug court approaches that offer a person charged with a crime the choice of treatment instead of incarceration, several US states mandate that people with addiction enter treatment against their will, and that trend is expanding. Mandating addiction treatment is highly controversial, however, both ethically and practically. At a 2016 United Nations High Level Meeting on HIV in New York, Fabienne Hariga, MD, MPH, senior adviser to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime summarized the position of UN organizations that “mandatory treatment settings do not represent a favorable or effective environment for the treatment of drug dependence” and should be replaced by “voluntary, evidence-informed, and rights-based health and social services in the community.’’
