RFK Jr has seriously proposed sending drug addicts, which he defines as people taking prescribed medication for mental health reasons, as well as your more stereotypical hardcore drug addicts... to basically agricultural work / detox camps.

No meds, no phone, live in a barracks, do farm work... while you and everyone else are cold turkey quitting heroin, or fentanyl, or ritalin or zoloft or wellbutrin.

I imagine it would be similar to the authoritarian practice of forcing teenagers to attend school: it really depends upon how it is organized and executed with additional variations in response based upon the individual.

The trick is just that everyone has to do it. Without exemptions for rich, influential etc…. (Ofc. not disabled, pregnant etc…)

Its actually been done before and most teens quitted or were fired within weeks because of the inhuman working conditions. The quality of the work they would do is completely irrelevant.

It sounds better than forced military service.

The thing about forced labor is that quantity is its own quality.

You can also use certain government controlled documents as an incentive. For instance, it was common in the Soviet Union to use agricultural service as a requisite for graduation.