Mayor Eric Adams proposes forcing drug users from public areas and into treatment

Mayor Eric Adams wants the state to let New York City force drug users from public spaces and into treatment, his latest plan to use involuntary means aimed at combating street homelessness, mental illness and drug use.

In proposing what he’s calling the Compassionate Interventions Act, Adams wants to be able to dispatch teams of clinicians and cops to forcibly transport those "struggling with substance use disorder and address public drug use on city streets that degrades quality of life and leaves a feeling of disorder among many city residents," his office wrote Thursday in a news release.

It's a similar approach to that of President Donald Trump, who favors forcibly clearing homeless people from public places and funding organizations that enforce prohibitions on open drug use.

Earlier this year, Adams successfully pushed the state to expand the legal criteria under which a person can be involuntarily committed. Now, under an agreement this spring between Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers, anyone can be forcibly hospitalized if they are mentally ill and cannot meet their own basics needs, including shelter, food or medical care.

Under Adams' latest proposal, teams could force those who are apparently drug users to be transported to a hospital, where medical professionals would sign off on seeking court approval to mandate treatment, when earlier measures have been unsuccessful.

The release said 37 other U.S. states authorize involuntary commitment for drug addicts.

Adams announced the plan earlier this week in a speech before the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

"The evidence is right there in front of us: people openly using illegal drugs on the streets and in our parks or passed out in doorways and sidewalks; encampments littered with syringes and vials; and unsanitary conditions that are a threat to public health and public order," he said. "This cannot be allowed to continue."

The proposal, which would require changing state law, was panned by civil libertarians and advocates for the homeless.

In a news release, New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman said the proposal could backfire.

"Forced treatment can greatly increase the risk of a fatal overdose, raises serious due process and civil liberties concerns, and contributes to harmful stereotypes about people with substance use disorders," she said.

A 2015 review in the International Journal of Drug Policy concluded: "Evidence does not, on the whole, suggest improved outcomes related to compulsory treatment approaches, with some studies suggesting potential harms."

Recovering drug addict Luis Caballery, 47, was hanging out Friday afternoon on a folding chair under an umbrella on the periphery of Greeley Square Park, down the block from Penn Station.

Caballery, a former crack smoker who's now in rehab and lives nearby in a homeless shelter, said forcing drug users into treatment against their will is not only wrong — a civil rights violation, he said — but won’t even work long term. It’ll just spin a revolving door, shuffling users back and forth between institutional settings and the streets, where they’ll ultimately resume drug use.

"It’s bad to force people," he said. "It’s a bad idea."

For an addict to get off and stay off drugs, Caballery said, the person must want to.

For Caballery, it was stinking all the time and seeing people give him dirty looks.

"I was tired of living the way I was living," Caballery said. "There’s more to life than that."

In a statement issued by the Coalition for the Homeless, executive director David Giffen called Adams' proposal "ineffective, inhumane and a waste of taxpayers' dollars."

"Mayor Adams’ approach seems in lockstep with the current federal efforts to use law enforcement to simply sweep people out of sight — an approach that is amoral, ineffective, and counter to what New Yorkers want to see coming from their leadership," he said.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.