Mayor Eric Adams of New York City on Thursday returned to his roots as a law-and-order campaigner, vowing to seek the state’s permission to forcibly remove drug users from the city’s streets without their consent.

The mayor also called for allowing hospital workers to mandate treatment with court approval. Both proposals were immediately condemned by organizations that work with the homeless.

Mr. Adams announced the plan at an event hosted by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, a sign of the mayor’s push to attract right-leaning and centrist voters to his long-shot third-party candidacy for re-election in November.

“The evidence is right there in front of us,” the mayor said in his speech at a Midtown Manhattan hotel. “People openly using illegal drugs on the streets and in our parks, passed out in doorways and sidewalks, encampments littering with syringes and vials and unsanitary conditions that are a threat to public health and public order. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

According to the mayor’s office, 37 other states already allow the involuntary commitment of people with substance abuse disorders.

But the research on mandated treatment suggests that it is often ineffective, and his proposal was met with immediate condemnation from experts in homelessness, with several saying the plan evoked the Trump administration’s show of force in Washington, D.C.