Officials have agreed to repeal severe drug laws that wasted law enforcement resources and created an incarceration crisis. Now Congress should follow their lead. For more than 30 years, New York's draconian drug laws have been among the toughest in the nation, requiring sentences of 15 years to life even for nonviolent first-time offenders. Worse, New York's early example was followed by states across the country, furthering a flawed strategy that was as harmful to society, in many ways, as drug use itself. The result has been wasted law enforcement resources -- as if police could arrest away drug addiction -- and a national incarceration crisis. Millions of lives were destroyed. [continues 84 words]
A year ago, a drug policy activist I was interviewing turned the tables on me. "What do you think it would take to get Americans to start talking seriously about legalizing pot?" he asked. I said maybe if some high profile celebrity got caught smoking marijuana, someone you never would have suspected - preferably a Republican. Catch Nancy Reagan with a joint, I said, and the national conversation about drug prohibition would change. Michael Phelps is no Nancy Reagan. But the conversation seemed to shift a little when photos surfaced of him hitting on a bong at a party on a South Carolina campus in February. There was the usual faux outrage to begin with, with commentators clucking about role models and talk of Phelps' endorsement contracts going up in smoke. There were the usual hippie-dippy jokes, with dated Cheech-and-Chong references. Phelps made the ritual apologies and promised never to do it again. [continues 1077 words]
To the Editor: Re "Albany Reaches Deal to Repeal '70s Drug Laws" (front page, March 26): The agreement between Gov. David A. Paterson and state legislative leaders to dismantle the Rockefeller drug laws is long awaited. The laws' enforcement of mandatory minimum sentencing - even for first-time low-level offenders - squandered the opportunity to link individuals with substance abuse issues to effective treatment. The proposed plan's expansion of access to substance abuse treatment for first-time nonviolent offenders will help prevent people from entering a revolving door between substance abuse and the criminal justice system. We applaud the governor's focus on treatment, rather than punishment, to end the cycle of addiction. James R. Knickman President and Chief Executive New York State Health Foundation New York [end]
The War Is Over. We Lost. The lesson in this defeat should be that war was never the answer, and we must embrace the inevitable: One day, Americans will be able to buy a bag of weed or cocaine as easily as they buy a pack of cigarettes. The United States has spent more than $2.5 trillion fighting the so-called "war on drugs" over the past 40 years, according to a recent Time magazine article, yet the number of illicit drug users continues to rise, and today includes nearly 20 million Americans. [continues 567 words]
America's Prison Break: The United States is the world's leading jailer. On any given day, more than 2.3 million people are locked in our prisons and jails-more than in any other country. Just how bad is it? The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world's population, but about a quarter of its prisoners. We have more prisoners than China-a country with a repressive government and more than four times the population of the U.S. We lock up 756 people for every 100,000 U.S. residents-that's about five times as many as England and Wales (152 per 100,000), more than six times as many as Canada (116) and 10 times as many as Sweden (74). [continues 606 words]
While the sheriffs of Oswego and St. Lawrence counties are calling upon state Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent, to "just say no" to weakening the so-called Rockefeller drug laws, their counterpart in Jefferson County says the current mood in Albany "is a step in the right direction." Oswego County Sheriff Reuel A. Todd and St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin M. Wells released a joint statement Monday asserting that reducing current penalties "for major drug dealers" will result only in sending "a dangerous message to drug dealers, users and young people." [continues 61 words]
Exploding prison populations in the US serve a basic need of capitalism, at the expense usually of Blacks The business of keeping people in cages is not a pretty one. While bodies pile up on Vancouver streets and as dealers fight over the drug war's lucrative spoils, our politicians and corporate media look to jails as a solution. But we need only look south of the border to see what sort of solution corrections offers. The United States now has far and away the highest proportion of population under correctional control in the world. [continues 1335 words]
Bernie, you are about to face a living hell. How I do I know? In 1985, I was sentenced to 15 years to life under New York's draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws for a first-time nonviolent drug crime. So I know all too well what your life is going to be like. Madoff, who agreed to a plea deal, is about to spend the rest of his life behind bars for stealing an estimated $65 billon from thousands of people. [continues 568 words]
ALBANY -- An agreement reached by Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders this week to give judges more flexibility to determine drug sentences would also allow hundreds of people currently in prison for nonviolent drug offenses to ask a judge to resentence them, the governor said Friday. The proposal, which sweeps away much of what is left of the Rockefeller-era drug laws, would also create new categories of crimes for so-called drug kingpins and people who sell drugs to children. [continues 688 words]
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is right to point out the role of Americans and United States government policy in the creation of powerful and viscous Mexico drug cartels and the violence they have spawned in that country and ours. The secretary, during a visit to Mexico, said Americans have provided a huge market for the drugs supplied by the gangs and, thereby providing huge sums of money to bribe Mexican officials and guns to kill police officers and army personnel. [continues 249 words]
The battle lines have been drawn. Let the political war over the dismantling of the Rockefeller Drug Laws begin. A political firestorm ignited across the state on Friday, starting with Gov. David A. Paterson and Democratic legislative leaders announcing an agreement to make "sweeping changes" in the Rockefeller Drug Laws, during a late-morning news conference in Albany. Not long after those cameras were turned off, Republican legislators and law enforcement officials held their own news briefings to counter the Democrats' claims and cry foul over the way the agreement was hammered out in secret and put into the state budget. [continues 701 words]
ALBANY - Gov. David A. Paterson and New York legislative leaders have reached an agreement to dismantle much of what remains of the state's strict 1970s-era drug laws, once among the toughest in the nation. The deal would repeal many of the mandatory minimum prison sentences now in place for lower-level drug felons, giving judges the authority to send first-time nonviolent offenders to treatment instead of prison. The plan would also expand drug treatment programs and widen the reach of drug courts at a cost of at least $50 million. [continues 950 words]
To the Editor: Re "A $20 Bag, and What Might Have Been" (Dispatches, March 1), about the Rockefeller drug laws and Louis Carrasquillo, who served 12 1/2 years for selling $20 worth of crack cocaine: Unfortunately, Mr. Carrasquillo's story is a typical one. When I arrived at Sing Sing prison in 1985 to serve a 15-year-to-life sentence under the mandatory provisions of the Rockefeller laws, I soon found out that many of the prisoners had drug habits and were serving long sentences for possessing small amounts of drugs. [continues 124 words]
Obama's End To Raids On Medical Marijuana Likely To Reignite Debate On Decriminalization WASHINGTON - Wars rarely end at the first hint of truce. But when the Obama administration quietly announced this week it will halt federal raids against dispensers of medical marijuana, advocates of drug policy reform found themselves in a tickertape mood. Could this be Armistice Day for America's decades-long war on drugs? Not quite. Not yet, at least. But the new government's reversal of the Bush-era's zero-tolerance on pot comes amid a confluence of signals that America may be nearing a turning point in its approach to prohibition. Exit "reefer madness" and enter a more reasoned debate on what works, with the goal of targeting deadly cartels who today place drugs in the hands of American children with greater ease than ever before. [continues 1952 words]
To The Editor; Managing Editor Jim Reagen editorials have criticized anyone who dares to back the reform of the draconian Rockefeller drug laws. The reasons Mr. Reagen use for resisting change are plausible but data and research from various agencies put a different light on the issue. The scope of drug law reform is so large that it would be impossible to supply the managing editor with all the pertinent information in this letter but, I chose some interesting facts that I would hope give Mr. Reagen and Mr. Kelly a different perspective on the issue. One last thing I would like to mention to Mr. Reagen is that it's not only Democrats that are seeking drug law reform; there are Republicans, Libertarians and Independent Party members in the advocacy for change. [continues 308 words]
A new bill in the state legislature may amend New York drug laws to make it easier for drug offenders to receive treatment instead of prison sentences. The bill to reform the Rockefeller drug laws, named for former governor Nelson Rockefeller who enacted the laws in 1973, passed in the New York State Assembly last Wednesday by a vote of 96 to 46. Current laws require mandatory prison sentences for the sale and possession of illegal drugs depending on the weight of the drugs involved. Medical treatment for offenders is granted only with the prosecutor's consent. [continues 228 words]
No, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano isn't high. He's well aware that federal law prohibits the legalization of marijuana sales in California. No, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano isn't high. He's well aware that federal law prohibits the legalization of marijuana sales in California. He also knows President Obama opposes changing the federal law. So what's the San Francisco Democrat up to with AB 390, his proposal to legalize and tax weed to ease the state's deficit? Think of it as a conversation starter -- a necessary first step toward bringing more reason into U.S. drug laws. They won't change without pressure and leadership from states such as California. [continues 376 words]
To The Editor; Once again Editor Reagan is using the Ogdensburg Journal to exert his sanctimonious wisdom on the public. This time his target is Assemblywoman Addie Jenne Russell for her vote to reform the Rockefeller drug laws. Our current drug laws have been a dismal failure since their inception 35 years ago. Obviously these extremely punitive laws have not been the deterrent lawmakers intended them to be as drugs are more readily available, purity has vastly improved, and black-markets have flourished since Governor Rockefeller enacted these laws, all the while drug arrest and incarceration rates have skyrocketed. The Editor states that District Attorney's oppose drug law reform as it would make it harder to investigate and prosecute drug cases. The position district Attorneys have taken is understandable, the Rockefeller drug laws have given prosecutors a powerful tool to coerce defendants into accepting plea bargains of a lesser sentence or provide information on other citizens. Prosecutors often use these harsh laws to intimidate defendants into forgoing their Constitutional right to a jury trial for fear that if they are found guilty a very lengthy sentence will be handed down, often longer than a murderer, child molester, or rapist would receive. [continues 62 words]
Democratic Plan to Shift Action to the Budget Avoids GOP "Soft on Crime" Charges ALBANY -- Seeking a politically safe path, and possibly lacking the votes to tackle the measure on its own, the state Senate's Democratic majority plans to roll Rockefeller Drug Law reforms into its larger budget proposal to be taken up later this month. News that Democratic senators, who control their chamber 32 to 30, won't cast individual votes on drug law reforms came on Friday, less than two days after Assembly Democrats passed the measure. Senators spent several hours behind closed doors Wednesday night grappling with the issue. [continues 370 words]
No, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano isn't high. He's well aware that federal law prohibits the legalization of marijuana sales in California. He also knows President Obama opposes changing the federal law. So what's the San Francisco Democrat up to with AB 390, his proposal to legalize and tax weed to ease the state's deficit? Think of it as a conversation starter - a necessary first step toward bringing more reason into U.S. drug laws. They won't change without pressure and leadership from states such as California. [continues 414 words]
