Cannabis News Media Awareness Project
  Collateral Damage in the War on Drugs
Posted by FoM on April 02, 2002 at 16:26:22 PT
Editorial 
Source: News & Record 

justice When the Supreme Court last week unanimously affirmed "zero tolerance" for drugs in public housing, its resolve was understandable. Illegal drugs in these communities breed crime, imperil lives and destroy families. Consider the ravages of the drug trade over the years in such notorious Greensboro haunts as "The Hill" near Ray Warren Homes and "The Grove" near Morningside.

Yet, at the same time, the decision is unsettling and the regulations it affirms seem cold, draconian and even classist.

The high court ruled 8-0 last week that housing authorities, as landlords, may evict entire households if one member of that household, or even a guest, is convicted of drug use. The policy is so unbending that it covers drug use that may occur outside of the home. In fact, housing officials may evict a resident even "if the tenant did not know, could not foresee or could not control behavior by other occupants." One strike and whole families potentially are out.

"No-fault evictions" were adopted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1991. The Supreme Court case stems from an Oakland, Calif., lawsuit filed by four senior citizens who were evicted from public housing because of drug use by relatives or caregivers.

The 8-0 opinion, written by Justice William H. Rehnquist, noted that tenants knowingly and willingly agree to the terms of the lease when they sign it. Rehnquist also argued that the "reign of terror" wreaked by drugs in public housing is so dangerous and pervasive that the overall safety of those communities justifies the policy's swift, unambiguous consequences. A tenant who cannot control drug crime in his or her own household, Rehnquist wrote, is himself "a threat to other residents and the project."

We don't disagree. A number of public housing residents councils throughout the country not only support zero tolerance, but have lobbied for it.

"What they're saying is, you're responsible for your household," says Evelyn Taylor, a longtime Ray Warren and Morningside resident who has battled drug dealers in those communities for decades. "If you admit you have a problem, they'll help you. But if you don't, they'll evict you."

Still, Taylor wonders why residents elsewhere in the city don't have to be as accountable. "There should be something put in place," she says.

In Greensboro, the police typically inform public housing officials of drug abuse in a household. An eviction review hearing follows. Among the factors considered is whether the drug user is seeking treatment. "There is always discretion to consider," says Tina Akers, the Housing Authority's executive director. "It's not as cut-and-dried as everyone would think it is." Yet there is no appeals process.

Meanwhile, in suburbia, we won't lose our government-subsidized mortgage loans if a houseguest, employee or relative abuses drugs. Nor, for that matter will drug sellers and users who live on the fringes of public housing.

Only in public housing, it seems, are civilian casualties acceptable in the war on drugs.

Source: Greensboro News & Record (NC)
Published: April 2, 2002
Copyright: 2002 Greensboro News & Record, Inc.
Contact: edpage@news-record.com
Website: http://www.news-record.com/

Related Articles:

What Has The Supreme Court Been Smoking?
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12419.shtml

High Court Rules It's OK to Evict Granny
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12394.shtml

Justices Rule Drug-Eviction Law Is Fair
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12370.shtml


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Comment #1 posted by freddybigbee on April 03, 2002 at 06:22:12 PT:

Is this important?
The important thing about this ruling is that it establishes the precedent that, in the U.S.A. a citizen can be punished for an act he did not commit, and did not have knowledge of. You can bet the court will "build" upon this lofty principal in future rulings.

Even the pretense of fairness has been abandoned...by a unanimous ruling. Americans are so numb from incessant spin that they are largely incapable of discerning an important public policy failure from a meaningless blurb.

Stupification of the masses is the long-term goal of spin-meisters; they're so clever.

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