Gov. Pataki's proposal to soften New York State's Rockefeller-era drug laws is nothing more than a " smoke and mirrors " ploy for reelection.
The Governor¹s proposal will reduce the severity of some mandatory drug possession sentences. For example, it would reduce the harshest sentence from 15 years to life to 8  1/3 years to life. This is like taking a heaping spoonful of poison and reducing it to a rounded spoonful of poison.
The Governor would also increase the number of people going into treatment for a drug offense, but if they relapse, they would go to state prison. By simultaneously treating drug use as a crime and as a disease, without coming to grips with the inherently diametric and irreconcilable contradictions of those two approaches, the Governor is simply enabling our continued national schizophrenia about drug use. Gov. Pataki could take lessons from the drug reform behavior of two other governors.

By 1923, at the height of the federal alcohol Prohibition (the Volstead Act), almost all states, including New York, had enacted their own the alcohol Prohibition laws.  At that time, New York State Senator Louis Curvillier introduced a measure that was ingeniously simple and cost nothing. The measure merely repealed the state Prohibition laws and replaced them with nothing. Though this did not " legalize " alcohol in New York State, it shifted the burden of enforcing the Prohibition laws from state to federal authorities. With surprisingly scant opposition, the bill passed the legislature and was signed into law by New York State Gov. Al Smith. Because federal enforcement was weak, over the next 10 years of the alcohol Prohibition, New York City and State escaped most of the prohibition-related violence that plagued other areas, including large cities like Chicago and Detroit.

On January 5th of this year, New Mexico's conservative Republican governor Gary Johnson offered eight pieces of drug reform legislation.  Johnson's package would, if passed, be the most comprehensive revamping of state-level drug policy reform in the land.

The eight bills Johnson offered will:

1. Decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana by
adults. Public use could result in a civil penalty.

2. Revive New Mexico's long-dormant medical marijuana act by allowing
physicians to recommend and patients to possess marijuana when medically appropriate.

3. Make first- and second-time drug possession a misdemeanor, with offenders sentenced to probation and treatment instead of jail or prison time.

4. Amend the state's habitual offender law so that it does not apply to drug convictions.

5. Expand the state's needle exchange effort by allowing pharmacists to
dispense needles without fear of drug paraphernalia charges (a proposal
which has just been enacted into law in New York State).

6. Alter state liability laws so police officers and others can administer
drugs such as naloxone or Narcan, which can save the life of someone
overdosing on heroin, without fear of subsequent civil suits.

7. Change asset forfeiture laws so that accused persons must be convicted of drug trafficking before their property and money can be seized and to demand that prosecutors show "clear and convincing" evidence that the seized goods are related to drug trafficking.

8. Allow ex-felons to become drug counselors.

The models given by former New York Gov. Smith and current New Mexico Gov.Johnson are profiles in courage and pragmatic intelligence. Gov. Pataki's drug reform pales in comparison. If Gov. Pataki is really interested in the welfare of the citizens of New York and wants to reduce both the racism and the economic expenses of theRockefeller-era drug laws, he could recommend totally repealing the laws and/or replacing them with proposals similar to those of Gov. Johnson. Otherwise he's just another cowardly politician being "tough on crime", pandering to the uninformed fears of the populace, and hoping he will be seen as a leader in the next election.

Gene Tinelli, M.D., Ph.D
Addiction Psychiatrist
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science
Upstate Medical University
State University of New York
Syracuse, N.Y. 13210