A New Mission Impractical: Zero Tolerance for Users

By Richard Lacayo

Sometimes it's the little things that count. How little? In San Diego last week U.S. Customs agents seized Atlantis II, an $80 million research vessel once used to explore the wrack of the Titanic, after a routine search turned up traces of pot in the shaving kit of a crew member along with two marijuana pipes. The ship was returned, but only when its owner, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, agreed to send Customs officials a letter supporting the antidrug campaign and promising to tighten security. Zero tolerance strikes again.

Even as some Americans were asking whether drugs should be legalized, a Reagan Administration under fire for fumbling the drug war was pushing penalties to unheard of lengths. Zero tolerance, as the two-month-old policy is called, directs the Coast Guard, Customs Service and other arms of the Federal Government to enforce existing laws to the utmost degree. That means seizing vehicles, boats and planes if just a speck of any controlled substance is found on board. By last week the Coast Guard and Customs had grabbed some 1,700 conveyances, including the $2.5 million yacht Ark Royal and the good ship Monkey Business, famed as the holiday vessel of Gary Hart and Donna Rice. Those two ships were also returned, but the fate of hundreds of less celebrated transports still hangs in the balance.

Laws that permit federal authorities to confiscate criminal assets have been used with great success in recent years to hit Mafia bosses and drug dealers where it hurts -- in their profits. But the law allows government agencies to carry out "administrative seizures" that do not require the owner to be convicted of any crime. Police and federal agents in New York City and Los Angeles have been using that method to impound the cars of drive-in drug buyers whose purchases would bring merely a misdemeanor charge in court. U.S. Customs Commissioner William von Raab, who proposed zero tolerance to the White House drug-policy board after a successful pilot program in San Diego, says its purpose is likewise to put pressure on drug users who ordinarily are not reached by criminal penalties. "We have legalization of drugs now," says Von Raab, "because people aren't being prosecuted."

Even among those charged with executing the antidrug measures, however, the string of government seizures can seem excessive and unfair, especially when they involve owners who may have had no idea that drugs were on board. "Say my kids go out and one of their friends leaves a roach in the ashtray," says Joseph McNamara, chief of the San Jose police department. "How would I know?" Federal agencies often return property when owners can show they knew nothing about the drugs involved, but they are not obliged to. And the rules that govern agency hearings are different from those that prevail in a courtroom: it is up to the accused to prove their innocence. "We have a rule in American jurisprudence that the penalty fits the crime," says Colleen O'Connor of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Confiscation of millions of dollars in property for a joint doesn't fit."

Not to be outdone by the White House in an election year, however, the House of Representatives last week approved amendments to three spending bills that would withhold federal funds from workplaces where drugs are found. One of the workplaces cited was Congress itself, which led to booing and cheers in the august halls when the relevant provision was adopted by a vote of 286 to 98. Opponents claimed that it could lead to the defunding of government functions merely because House staffers were caught with drugs. But why not? When it comes to confiscation, everyone is in the same boat -- or plane. If a joint were discovered aboard the Queen Elizabeth II, says Michael Fleming, spokesman for the Customs Service in Los Angeles, "Technically, we may have the authority to seize it."

With reporting by Jon D. Hull/Los Angeles and Elaine Shannon/Washington