That drug use thing is a massive stretch of the words “cause harm to yourself or others”. That clause is - to my knowledge - used exclusively to mean things like abuse, assault, murder, or suicide.

Did some further googling and it appears that what I remember might apply to a) school councillors and the like, and b) law enforcement getting reports about type of treatment after they dropped someone off. Why law enforcement is doing EMT stuff is of course yet a whole another topic.

While Scripture discourages gossiping and speech designed to damage the reputation of another, keeping a confidence “is not an absolute, especially when others are being harmed or may be hurt.

And that’s exactly how German law sees it: Breaking confidence is permitted in certain cases, but not mandated. On the flipside, if you’re e.g. a cop or a child care worker, when you see certain things you are required to pursue them, that’s different in e.g. the Netherlands where cops are free to ignore you if you light up a joint in front of them, and tell them about it, and don’t even hide it in a brown bag. People taking confessions including therapists are neither of those, though, so they do not have that kind of duty.

Law will never be able to cover, in detail, the balancing process necessary to actually reduce harm in any specific case. It is a very blunt instrument.

You’re exchanging one absolute for another. The original absolute btw, not being that absolute because catholic priests can tattle anonymously (if the state allows for such things, different topic), and then themselves confess. But it should never be a “hear X, do Y” kind of deal. That doesn’t serve the situation.