A plan to force meth addicts into three months of treatment and rehab isn't ready to take to the West Australian Cabinet, mental health minister Helen Morton says.
Ms Morton says the proposal requires a lot more work including gauging the community response.
But she says families of people suffering from meth addiction are desperate for help.
"With a drug-induced psychosis, when people are clearly out of control and don't have capacity to make decisions for themselves, we can hold them involuntarily in a hospital while they are able to come down," Ms Morton told 6PR on Tuesday.
"They need to be in this place where they're safe, away from the influence of the dealers, give them a chance to clean out, gather their thoughts and perhaps they would engage in rehab.
"Our mental health laws (currently) don't allow that."
Corrective services minister Joe Francis said it was important to be open minded when it came to treating addiction.
He said the government had to weigh up the cost of taking people off the street against leaving violent drug users on the street.
Mr Francis said 37 per cent of people who enter a WA prison have a known drug addiction, the majority of whom are meth addicts.
"If we could instantly magically wave a wand and fix the meth problem, I would probably lose a third of my prisoners overnight," he told ABC radio.
