Mental Healthcare Act 2017: Impact on addiction and addiction services

The Mental Healthcare Act (MHCA) 2017 has been recently enacted with the objectives of providing mental health services and securing of rights of the persons with mental illness. Mental conditions due to abuse of alcohol or drugs have been included in the definition of mental illness. However, these conditions present some unique and difficult problems due to their very nature. Despite being an integral part of psychiatry, these disorders have traditionally been dealt with separately and even treated in dedicated facilities such as deaddiction centers and rehabilitation centers. In fact, some states have separate rules for treatment delivery of these disorders. Addiction also has major legal ramifications that are dealt with other acts such as the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPSA). With this background, this article focuses on the issues of capacity and informed consent specific to addiction, addresses the admission issues in addiction including the issue of coerced treatment, and the treatment facilities, and deals with the some of the discordance and inconsistency between the NDPSA and the MHCA 2017. We believe that addiction-related provisions have not been addressed adequately in the MHCA 2017, and detailed procedures specific to addiction and its treatment will be required if the MHCA 2017 has to be implemented both in letter and in spirit.