Editorial: Zero tolerance for zero tolerance

Thursday, March 28, 2002 | 8:28 a.m.

A policy of "zero tolerance" sounds tough and noble, like the sound of a bar patron's fist landing on a table accompanied by his words, "Damn straight!" Zero tolerance is affirmative. It's no-nonsense, hard-lined and about time. Right up until three grandmothers and a 75-year-old disabled man, all innocent and with good reputations, may be evicted from their public housing units because either their grandkids or their caretaker got caught with drugs out in the world somewhere, in places the elderly residents could not possibly supervise. But the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't see it that way. In a decision Tuesday regarding a case out of Oakland, Calif., the justices voted unanimously that innocent people may be punished for the transgressions of others.

The high court upheld the zero tolerance drug policy the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development adopted in 1991, under which a whole family in public housing can be evicted if one member, on or off the premises, is affiliated with illegal drugs. Nowhere in any of the documents of the specific case the court reviewed was it alleged that the three grandmothers and the disabled man had used illegal drugs or tolerated illegal drugs anywhere around them. But it didn't matter. Out of their sight, out of their control, there was drug activity among people who lived with them.

We understand that drug abuse has turned many public housing projects into nightmares and agree that tough standards are required and need to be enforced. But we see as dangerous any arbitrary policy that blocks reason and mitigating circumstances. Judges might want to rule that drug use inside a housing unit warrants a wholesale eviction. They also might want to rule that in some cases, particularly when the drug use took place well off the premises, that the adults are innocent. We think replacing judgment with zero tolerance is a bad mistake.