Sitting at his dining room table, Kelsey Klausmeyer, 41, looks at a picture of his late husband, Enrique Klausmeyer-Garcia, known to most as Ricky. He died almost exactly a year ago, at the age of 37. Kelsey can’t make sense of it. When they met, Kelsey was awed by Ricky’s story: his long battle with addiction, his years of sobriety, his advocacy for recovery. Now, after his death and in the midst of a nationwide addiction crisis, the narrative around Ricky’s life is less tidy.
Ricky is the inspiration for a Washington state law – known as Ricky’s law – passed in 2017 that enables loved ones and public safety officials to compel people experiencing substance abuse to undergo treatment, even if they are unable or unwilling to consent to it themselves.
The US has been experimenting with these forced-commitment laws for decades. The debate over their efficacy, practicality and ethicality is seeing renewed urgency in states such as New York, California and Washington, where addiction and severe mental health disorders have become a highly visible and highly political issue.
Ricky’s story brings into sharp relief one of the fundamental and difficult questions that officials in these places are grappling with: to what extent should society override an individual’s rights in the name of saving their life and protecting public safety?
For Kelsey, Ricky’s story is not primarily about public policy. It’s a story of immense personal joy and loss, laid before him in a handful of pictures. Here they are with their dog, Otis, whom Ricky “treated like our child”, chuckles Kelsey. Here they are in 2022 on their wedding day, both smiling, fit and handsome at a sunny mountain resort 90 minutes from their home in Seattle. Two hundred of their friends and family came to spend three days celebrating.
Here is Ricky with members of his sprawling family. When the couple first started dating, they discovered, remarkably, that they were both from families of nine siblings, both raised Catholic. “We always thought we were kind of destined in a way,” says Kelsey.
Kelsey grew up in Kansas; Ricky’s
