ADDICTION EQUALS EVICTION

At a time when I would like to place as much faith as possible in
governmental authority, I can't help but question the Supreme Court's
latest ruling. Its unanimous decision in favor of a one-strike law for
residents of public housing decrees that even innocent tenants can be
evicted if a family member or guest is caught with drugs in or near a
housing project. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is quoted in the Los
Angeles Times saying that the policy serves to make all tenants aware that
they can be removed if they do not prevent drug use by their family
members, and that furthermore, it protects law-abiding families from crime
and violence in the projects.

How can parents or grandparents control their children 24 hours a day, let
alone their adult acquaintances? Can we expect to see the Bush family
evicted from the White House because the president can't control his own
daughters' substance abuse? In order to control crime and violence, is the
government also going to start evicting any family whose members get into a
fight or are caught using a can of spray paint?

Under this law a disabled individual could lose his home if his caregiver
was caught carrying drug paraphernalia. Without prior knowledge of the
situation, what control could one possibly exert? In order to effectively
detect and prevent drug use by fellow family members, unyielding
surveillance would be required; as this is impossible, people with families
face the highest risk under this law.

Astonishingly, not one judge considered the very obvious consequences of
this ruling. This one-strike--or, let's face it, no-strike--law has many
more victims than beneficiaries. People who had been living in the
projects, obviously not doing well to begin with, will effectively become
homeless and most likely contribute to an increase in crime--the opposite
end of the law's intent.

I recently witnessed the speech of a homeless man who announced that by
giving him my change, with which he would admittedly buy crack cocaine, I
"might be saving a human life." He yelled, "If I don't get what I want, I
may end up killing someone tonight!" I was terrified, and I shudder to
think that my government considers it wise to mass-produce that kind of
desperation in its poor.

Even worse off are those who would still subsist in the projects, for whom
the social effects would be devastating. With this law the government
demands that residents assume the role of police, and in doing so not only
break sacred trusts with their children but cast a suspicious eye on their
neighbors, thus forging their world on a foundation of distrust. A
grandmother who would normally not think twice about taking her daughter's
children under her wing now has her own livelihood to consider.

Additionally, this law ignores the addictive qualities of most narcotics,
which will certainly impede the efforts of many tenants who might otherwise
be willing to comply. But citizens from the projects cannot afford to just
up and go to detox now that there is more at stake. The risk of losing
one's home does not make quitting any easier. People are forced to turn
their backs rather than extend their hands to friends and family who battle
addiction. In effect, normal familial connections are severed and forced to
undergo scrupulous review.

Of course innocent residents of the projects have the right to live in an
environment free of drugs and crime. But their rights do not supercede the
rights of equally innocent tenants with relations to people who are caught
using drugs. Under ideal circumstances, all families should be more
vigilant about controlling drug abuse among their members. But people who
live in public housing do not live under ideal circumstances. Punishing
innocent people for others' faults is a cruel, senseless way to make public
policy.

The biggest problem with drug eviction is that it ultimately targets the
poor, violating a number of constitutional amendments. If I go to the park
and get arrested for smoking dope, my dad is not going to lose his house.
Granted, government property is subject to different rules than private
property, but if owning a house makes one exempt, that is not equal
protection. And it certainly doesn't take a chief justice to see that
paying for a crime one didn't commit is cruel and unusual punishment. We
have become so concerned with putting a foreign face on terror that we have
lost sight of it within our own borders.