Zero tolerance is a spawn of the War On Drugs.

Or, in Watership Down terminology: You do not talk about the snares.

I look forward to your essay. I have been calling the unfortunate societal characteristic "brittleness" (as distinct from "resiliency"), but "Zero Tolerance" might do just as well. Brittle structures snap under load; Zero Tolerance crackles and bangs. It's not just about the cops, of course.

Fighting the tendency to go ketman could really help fight the pathetic war on drugs. Zero tolerance towards drugs has never made any sense. Prohibition didn’t work. I thought we’d already learned that lesson.

I don’t really agree with the policeman analogy, though. Back in the sixties, it was okay, it was even very groovy to call cops pigs and to treat them with disrespect. Question authority and all that. While I have no problem with questioning authority, (I’ve recently had a long and involved argument with cops about a traffic ticket. They were threatening to arrest me and I will take this case to the supreme court if I have to!) – but we should save that tactic for when it’s necessary.

In general, doctors, policemen, pilots and fireman are willing to take on risks and responsibilities that most people shy away from. What they do in their everyday lives can often be defined as heroic. They deserve respect.

Zero tolerance for crime works. That’s been proven, in New York City. Back in the early eighties, it was a mess. Now it’s the safest city in the country.

Zero tolerance for drugs (prohibition) doesn’t work. We should approach the zero tolerance question with a certain amount of pragmatism when we decide where and when to apply it.

Zero tolerance has always been with us in the form of "moral backbone", which didn't need to be spelled out or legislated for, because it was assumed - falsely, as it turns out - that the individual knew of their responsibilities as well as their rights. The role of education, paricularly in the teaching of the persuasive arts (media, medicine, law), needs to be looked at as an aggravating factor in fostering reactionary responses.