Safe consumption sites allow for drug use under some form of medical supervision. The aim is to prevent fatalities and connect people to addiction treatment. The City Council provided $100,000 for a feasibility study in September 2016, and members have grown increasingly frustrated with the delay. De Blasio has said the study will be coming “soon” for the past four months.

As the protesters were being put into a police van, hands secured behind their backs, first lady Chirlane McCray was a few miles uptown at John Jay College, promising that the study would be released “very soon” and explaining that this is not an easy decision.

“I think it’s a great concept. … Who can argue with harm reduction? But that’s not the only thing one has to take into consideration,” McCray said, following an unrelated press conference. “This is an instance where it’s more important to be right than to be fast, but I know that we are almost there.”

De Blasio, on Monday, again said he’d release the study soon and provide his own position on what the city can and should do next.

The mayor has also said the issue is challenging and complex, a position McCray echoed Wednesday.

“Addiction affects more than one individual — it’s the family, the community somebody lives in,” McCray said. “There is the legality, the political, there is so much. If one wants it to be successful, there is a lot that has to be taken into consideration, and this is a very thorough process and I’m very pleased with it.”

Shantae Owens, one of the protesters and a community health worker in Manhattan, said nothing about the current situation is complex.

“Either we open up safe consumption sites, or we open up more graves,” Owens said.