Civil Commitment for Opioid Misuse: Do Short-Term Benefits Outweigh Long-Term Harms?

Civil commitment for opioid misuse can provide short-term overdose protection but emerging evidence suggests it is associated with long-term harms including increased risk of severe withdrawal, relapse, and mortality. States should collect more robust long-term outcome data, decriminalize civil commitment proceedings, decriminalize proceedings, ensure access to medications for opioid use disorder, and strengthen post-release community-based treatment coordination to mitigate these harms.