What are some legal avenues that I can take to help a child with substance abuse problems?

As drug and alcohol attorneys we specialize in helping young adults who have addiction and mental illness issues. Typically, we use two avenues when it comes to making that person go to treatment and keeping them into treatment. Number one is the Marchman Act, which is Florida’s involuntary commitment statute for addiction and co-occurring mental illness. What that allows a mom or a dad to do it to petition the court, ask the court to send their child to treatment when that child is either not capable of making that decision, which is typical of somebody who has an addiction or mental illness issue, or they just won’t make the decision. So, it allows Mom and Dad to get a judge to make their child go to treatment. That’s number one. Number two, we use the guardianship statute, which typically has been used to help folk get control of, say, their elderly parents assets or medical decisions. As drug and alcohol attorneys, we use the guardianship statute to help moms and dads get control of what is an out of control situation. What that enable them to do it to start making medical decisions for their child, to start making financial decisions for their child, and to have access to medical records so we can see what’s really going on and then we can make the best decision. So, those are the two avenues that typically we use when it comes to using the legal system to help moms and dads to get control of their children who are dealing with addiction and mental illness.