They hang out in parking lots and playgrounds. They commandeer vacant apartments. In some cities they have become occupying armies, besieging entire housing complexes. They are the drug dealers who have terrorized public- housing projects since the birth of the crack-cocaine trade. Last week Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp announced sweeping plans to drive drug dealers out of public housing. But in his zeal to attack the drug crisis, Kemp may have ignored serious questions of practicality, if not constitutionality.
Kemp has been inspired by the antidrug crusades waged by a number of local public-housing authorities. Perhaps the...
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