Police may soon arrest Ben Cousins, an ex-AFL player dealing with drug problems, who has clashed with police in a spate of bizarre incidents in the last fortnight.

Cousins could become an involuntarily mental health patient for a 28-day psychiatric assessment if a magistrate deems him a risk, West Australian police commissioner Karl O’Callaghan said.

“Clearly, Ben is suffering from a significant mental issue at the moment and that’s what needs to be resolved,” he told Fairfax radio on Thursday.

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“There is some minor offences being committed, but the main thing is we’ve got to be concerned about his safety and his welfare, and the community has got be able to respond to that in some way and provide the care that he needs.”

Mr O’Callaghan, whose son Russell has also struggled with drug addiction, said a pattern had started to emerge from the former West Coast Eagles captain.

“You can only imagine what his family are going through at the moment,” he said.

“I’ve had problems within my family too with Russell.

Cousins has had a string of drug incidents including being fined $500 for possessing 4.65 grams of ice, and smoking the drug in a 2012 documentary, the Herald Sun reports.

He wrote about taking ice daily by 2008, the paper reported, and disclosed his desperate father drove him to get more drugs. His biography states he was evading drug testers during his career successfully apart from receiving a warning in 2002.

Cousins was charged on March 11 with reckless driving, failing to stop and refusing a breath test.

Four days later, the Brownlow medallist was detained for breaching security at an SAS base, and was hospitalised for a mental health assessment.

On Monday, he was again hospitalised after allegedly driving erratically outside a Sikh temple he had just photographed, and climbing onto the roof of a two-storey home.

WATCH: Ex AFL star Ben Cousins appears to try to outrun police before latest arrest: http://t.co/A13u2M2cM8 #9News pic.twitter.com/qpmiMzn1xe

— Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) March 23, 2015