DRUG WAR AFFLICTED BY SEIZURE MANIA

Give a kid a beer, lose your house. That's the essence of a law passed
in Albuquerque, N.M., last month. It's hard to imagine that the city's
expanded nuisance ordinance will stand up to a challenge, yet its
passage is indicative of the approach increasingly taken by governments
waging a "drug war."

The City Council voted 7-1 to amend a city code that was designed to
crack down on drug dealing and prostitution. Now, city enforcers can
seize a resident's house not only if it is suspected of being a crack
house or a brothel, but also if teen-agers hold keg parties there when
Mom and Dad are out of town.

The ordinance amends the definition of "drug-related criminal activity"
to include the following: "Allowing or permitting the consumption of
intoxicating liquors by any person under the age of 21 without their
parent's or guardian's knowledge or consent, or the order of a
practicing physician, or as part of a religious ceremony."

A stabbing death at a teen party was the catalyst for the council's
proposal, according to The Albuquerque Journal.

Although no responsible person encourages teen drinking, the
Albuquerque law oversteps the bounds of common sense to redefine drug-
related activity in a mind-boggling manner, and it is authoritarian in
nature.

With seizure laws, "they take your property first and then you have to
prove them wrong to get it back," said Dave Kopel, who is the research
director for the Independence Institute in Golden, Colo., a former
prosecutor and a law professor who specializes in civil liberties
issues.

Albuquerque officials say they will apply the law only in extreme
circumstances, such as when a house becomes a chronic problem. But the
ordinance provides no guarantees that the city will always use its
power judiciously. Albuquerque citizens have been asked to grant
enormous power to their government, and to trust that it will not now
or at any time in the future abuse it.

That doesn't bode well for residents, especially given the language the
city used to support the ordinance. The city attorney told the Journal
that the law "gives us a hammer" to use against homeowners.

"Criminal justice in this country is not supposed to be a blunt
instrument," Mr. Kopel said in response. It is supposed to be based on
fairness, justice, appropriateness and due process.

Americans were told that expanded government seizure powers would be
used only against big-time drug dealers, Mr. Kopel explained. "Now that
they've got this confiscation machine going ... it can be turned on
everybody else."

Chalk the Albuquerque absurdity up to another ill effect of America's
out-of-control drug war.