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According to the Times, the agreement being finalized would grant judges the authority to send first-time nonviolent offenders to treatment in all but the most serious felony drug offenses. (The Rockefeller-era Drug Laws require mandatory minimum sentences of one year for possessing even small amounts of narcotics.) Offenders would have to plead guilty in order to be sent to treatment. The Times Union reports that courts have been successfully experimenting with the treatment option since the mid '90s, and New York's drug courts now admit 2,600 new felony offenders each year, a small fraction of the 43,000 new felony drug arrests that come through the system.
Some wonder how the state budget will pay for the additional treatment, which could reach $80 million. But reform could save money over time because sending offenders to treatment is less expensive than spending $45,000 a year to lock them up, the Times reports. And the deal would also allow an unspecified number of drug offenders who are currently in prison to apply to have their sentences commuted, something that wasn't included in the compromise bill originally proposed by Paterson.
Senator Eric Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat who has helped lead the effort in Albany, expressed confidence that the newly Democratic Senate would soon pass reform, telling the Times, "It’s no secret the Senate’s old majority was the primary barrier to reforming our drug laws. But this is one of the reasons we fought so hard to take the majority. This is what our supporters have expected us to do."
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It's about time that the law distinguished between the real dealers and addicts who might sell a little in order to support their horrible habit. Hopefully, those addicts will get help rather than thrown in the slammer for a long period of time.
does this mean we can call an end to the "war on drugs"?
No. Dealers are still going to be targeted. The State is just being more fair to the user and occassional seller.
But reform could save money over time because sending offenders to treatment is less expensive than spending $45,000 a year to lock them up, the Times reports.
I remember reading about a year ago that it costs $99,000/yr.
Good. More available jail cells for violent criminals and less for Joe Pothead.
The Rockefeller drug laws were one of the most effective tools we had to combat drug crimes in NYC. Now where is the disincentive to use and abuse drugs when there is no mandatory minimum for possession of drugs. Shame on the Democrats. We will hold you responsible for the rise in crime, which is usually linked to increased drug use and abuse. Anyone who will deny that is either really dumb or putting their heads in the sand.
Yes, because throwing away a small time dealer, and or a first time offender for over 25 years is the best way to "save new york from crime."
You sir are dumb and putting your head in the sand instead of getting the facts about these laws.
Anyone caught with drugs should be given a mandatory minimum sentence.
Not only are drugs connected with crime, but they also sponsor terrorism:
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/soccp311.doc.htm
Anyone who uses drugs supports terrorism.
"Anyone who uses drugs supports terrorism"
as well as anyone who pays their taxes
Damn, something tells me you're just as ugly as you are dumb. I feel so, so sorry for you now. Would you like to be locked up or rehabilitated for your ignorance and hideousness?
"Now where is the disincentive to use and abuse drugs when there is no mandatory minimum for possession of drugs"
The disincentive is that they can still ruin your life. Treatment is better than incarceration where one can easily find and use drugs. And to link rising crime and drug use with RDL reform has no basis in fact, it sounds more like a fear tactic. Wake up!!!
"Shame on the Democrats. We will hold you responsible for the rise in crime, which is usually linked to increased drug use and abuse. Anyone who will deny that is either really dumb or putting their heads in the sand."
No, it's the Republicans who have spent the better part of the last 40 years blowing pot smoke up our asses with their 'War on Drugs' rhetoric that has only created a massive global illicit drug economy that has wrecked and destabilized nations like Colombia and Mexico and has materially enhanced the rise of terrorism via an opium-based funding mechanism in Afghanistan. For all the tough talk, what do the Republicans have to show for their moral crusade? Drug addiction is and always has been a medical problem. The social ills affiliated with drug use have deeper economic and social roots none of which any republican has dared confront because a.) it's expensive and Republicans are cheapskates when it comes to investing in other human beings; and b.) it's complicated, and Republicans always seek the simplest levels of understanding and engagement on issues because, quite frankly, republicans are simple-minded idiots. And you sir, are an excellent example.
"The Rockefeller drug laws were one of the most effective tools "
Then why are drugs so readily available? Why spend billions to lock up non-violent, sick addicts, when the money could be spent on schools, police, fire, roads, MTA, etc?
The War on Drugs started by Republican Nixon in 1969 and these RDLs of the early 70s are a total and complete failure! Everyone admits that except those making money off it.
Shame on you, as a presumed Republican, why don't you profess the personal choice of individuals to do what they want and get the govt off the back of the individual. Where is your libertarianism?
Or, are you half cocked on your legal drug, alcohol? Have a smoke of your cancerous tobacco, and let the rest of us smoke pot in peace.
If drugs were legalized, all these lowlife dealers would be out of business. That would put a serious dent in the crime rate.
The war against drugs is like the war against file sharing.
BTW - why are all the protesters black?
Good question!
This is a good step in the right direction for a number of reasons.
Great, we should welcome all those hardened criminals and deadbeats back onto our streets...
True dat homie... They need treatment, the poor misguided souls. They need interventions to get them back on track.
About fucking time.
Crabapple . . . best reply I've seen in a long time. Nice work.
It's about damned time that some sanity is allowed to leak into government drugs policy.
The problem - if indeed it is a problem and not simply a choice for a responsible and educated individual to make - is a medical one, not a criminal one.
good or bad. All I know is that there is going to be a ton more dealers in washington square park. Hopefully this will stop all my pothead friends from being so paranoid everytime I scream "NARC!"
Two reasons. One is that Black people are not quite as passive as White people politically. The second is that the laws, especially the drug laws, are administered unequally, especially targeting Black and Hispanic people, so they have a greater stake in ending it than others not so "favored" by the police. The Drug War is, and always has been, a racist project, besides appealing to sadism, superstition, and political ambition of the basest kind. It is a crime against humanity, and I am disappointed that Paterson is not terminating it completely.
Starrygordon -- oh please, I'm so tired of hearing that the drug laws are racist. Get over yourself. The only reason a larger number of minorities are arrested for drug-related crimes is that they are more involved with drugs than non-minorities. It's a simple numbers game. The police aren't out to get one race or another.
And for all of you who think the drug laws have failed, just wait to see what it's going to be like after the Rockefeller laws are repealed. I hope you enjoy living in drug-infested buildings and walking around the pot-smokers in the subway. Good luck.
You've made it abundantly clear now that your head isn't in the sand on this issue. It's deeply buried in your ass. White people use as much drugs if not more than anyone else. The enforcement of the laws has been executed in a deliberately racist manner, there is ample evidence to prove that fact.
If you read the literature of the Drug War, which actually began shortly before World War 1 as a sort of religious follow-on to Temperance, that is, intemperate alcohol prohibition, you will find constant overt references to race going right along until such talk became unfashionable in the 1960s. The drugs which were to be forbidden were those supposed to be used by "Orientals" (opium and its derivatives), "Negroes" (marijuana), and Hispanics (marijuana and coca). Those drugs which were used by White people (alcohol and tobacco) were not of interest to the early Drug Warriors even though they are much more toxic and addicitve than opiates or marijuana. After the disaster of Prohibition was mercifully terminated, prohibitionists and those who pandered to them had to turn to the other Drug War to satisfy their sadistic and superstitious desires, or continue their very profitable business. The connection of the Drug War to racism is obvious to (almost) everyone.
I expect drug use to decline when abolition of the current laws makes drugs less profitable and glamorous. But it is really not my business, or anyone else's, if informed adults, doing no harm to others, want to use drugs. The idea that the state should govern such things is absurd.