Overview

• Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the Compassionate Interventions Act on August 14 to allow clinicians and judges to involuntarily hospitalize individuals with substance use disorders.
• The proposal would extend to substance use the criteria recently broadened for mental health commitments and align New York with 37 other states that permit involuntary drug treatment.
• Adams’s package includes $27 million to expand treatment access, $14 million to boost syringe service programs and funding for new pilot outreach supports.
• Civil-rights and homeless advocacy groups such as the Legal Aid Society and NYCLU, along with medical experts, condemned the plan for raising due process concerns and risking higher overdose rates.
• With no confirmed sponsors in Albany, the bill faces an uphill path in the Democratic-led Legislature and could be hampered by the state’s limited long-term treatment capacity.