Mayor Eric Adams, facing a tough reelection battle, is proposing legislation to allow for the forcible removal of drug addicts from New York City streets.

The proposal, which Mr. Adams announced this week at a Manhattan Institute event, would allow for involuntary transport and hospitalization of drug users who “are dangerous to themselves or others” based solely on their substance use. Current law requires that they also be diagnosed with a mental illness.

The mayor said he will seek the introduction of the “Compassionate Intervention Act” in the state legislature’s 2026 session.

“I often hear from New Yorkers who say that they still see too many people in crisis on our streets. They are not wrong,” Mr. Adams said at Thursday’s event in Midtown.

“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.”

The legislation will need approval from the state legislature and the governor, Kathy Hochul.

According to the mayor’s office, 37 other states already permit forced commitment for drug addicts. The mayor’s proposal would allow hospital clinicians to seek a court order mandating substance use treatment for those who refuse treatment voluntarily.

Unveiled at a conservative think tank event, the mayor’s forced commitment proposal indicates that he is returning to his law-and-order roots as he fights for reelection this November. 

The latest Siena Research Institute survey shows Mr. Adams in fourth place with only 7 percent support. The Democratic mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, is polling in first place, with the former governor, Andrew Cuomo, and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa in second and third place respectively.

Mr. Sliwa scoffed at Mr. Adams’ proposal, telling the New York Sun the mayor is trying to get tough on crime and public drug use during an election year when his record shows he supports harm reduction and safe injection sites, even wanting to open five more of these sites.

“You can’t aid and abet drug use, drug distribution, drug paraphernalia – which can be freely given out now, paid for by taxpayers – and now say you’re going to forcibly commit drug users based on a doctor’s observation, which is going to be constitutionally challenged,” the Guardian Angels founder said. “He can’t have his cake and eat it too.”

Harm reduction advocates dislike the mayor’s proposal for different reasons, saying that forced treatment is ineffective and can be harmful, increasing the risk of overdose upon completion if a person relapses.

“Forced treatment is deadly,” the Drug Policy Alliance says. “Forced treatment is criminalization rebranded.”   

The New York Civil Liberties Union executive director, Donna Lieberman, slammed the mayor’s proposal as “part of the same old, failed playbook.” 

A systemic review on studies on forced addiction treatment, though, shows mixed results, with as many studies showing positive benefits as found harm. Mr. Adams framed forced treatment on Thursday as an expansion of the legislative changes he previously pushed with Ms. Hochul to make involuntary commitment for mental illness easier.

“I was one of the first – and most emphatic – voices to call for the wider use of involuntary commitment,” Mr. Adams said. “This was once described as a nonstarter, but in the three years since, we have seen a monumental shift in the conversation.”

President Trump issued an executive order last month on crime and disorder that threatens to tie state and local grants to how well municipalities enforce laws against public drug use and encampments and to pull funding from programs that promote harm reduction. 

Mr. Adams’ proposal includes funding for treatment and harm reduction. He is proposing a $27 million investment in treatment, with an emphasis on “contingency management,” an approach that has seen positive results by offering small rewards to those who meet treatment goals.

He is also proposing a $14 million investment in outreach teams connected to syringe services programs and $4 million for a drop-in center in the most hard-hit area of the South Bronx, “The HUB.”

Mr. Adams’ proposal faces an uncertain future as his reelection prospects look dim. It’s also unclear whether the state legislature would support the bill. Ms. Hochul said Thursday that she would need to review it.

Mr. Mamdani has previously said he opposes forced commitment for mental illness and would like to expand the number of safe injection sites, “ensuring they are equitably located across the city.”