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S. Renee Mitchell: Rights Don't Matter

The Oregonian ran a column this morning by S. Renee Mitchell on Portland’s Drug Free Zones. The zones, first enacted by the city in 1991, allow the police to arrest people for drug use and ban them from certain neighbors before the accused ever get their day in court. For the most part the law is used to move people who are homeless (mostly Hispanic and African-American) from business districts. Mitchell thinks these constitutionally-challenged zones are a great idea:

The problem with the critics of Portland's drug-free zones is that they keep expecting life to be fair. They prefer that the police serve as nursemaids to the addicts they arrest. Put them into rehab, detractors insist. Help make their lives better. But drug-free zones were never intended for those feel-good purposes. The objective is not to expose lowlives to more productive reasons for living. That was their parents' job. Or that of social workers who still think they can save people from their own self-destruction.

Drug-free zones are for one purpose: Break up gatherings of folks who have a propensity to either sell or use drugs. Keep them out of the area for 90 days and then arrest them if they return.

There are two general problems with Mitchell’s comments. First, it actually makes sense in a democratic society to assume constitutional protections apply to everyone – even the poor, even the drug addicted. Secondly, labeling people suffering from drug addiction as “lowlives” is a mistake. Most of the people who are homeless and addicted also suffer from some form of mental illness. These are people who suffer a terrible disease. From this column I’m wondering again if it is newspaper columnists who more accurately fall into the “lowlife” category.

If you want to read more about why Drug-Free Zones are a bad idea please click here and read the 1997 piece I wrote on the issue.

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