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Cal. WIC § 5170

This is the official text of Cal. WIC § 5170, part of California’s Welfare and Institutions Code — governs public social services, juvenile justice, and mental health/developmental disability services.

Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.

Official statutory text

When any person is a danger to others, or to himself, or gravely disabled as a result of inebriation, a peace officer, member of the attending staff, as defined by regulation, of an evaluation facility designated by the county, or other person designated by the county may, upon reasonable cause, take, or cause to be taken, the person into civil protective custody and place him in a facility designated by the county and approved by the State Department of Alcohol and Drug Abuse as a facility for 72-hour treatment and evaluation of inebriates.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.