If a person endangers his/her physical or mental health through extensive and persistent substance abuse, the Child Welfare Tribunal can decide to place them in a suitable institution against their will for a period of up to three months. Such coercive measures may only be ordered if voluntary assistance measures, such as follow-up by the municipal substance abuse services or voluntary treatment in an institution, have proven inadequate. The tribunal must also make an overall discretionary assessment of whether compulsory admission is a reasonable and proportionate measure.
This provision is intended for the most severely afflicted substance abusers. According to the preparatory works to the Act, there is ‘no reasons to apply it unless there is concrete reason to believe that it is possible, in a period of three months or less, to do something that will have a long-term positive impact on the client’.