Rockefeller Drug Laws

My colleague from the Drug Policy Alliance wrote this op-ed piece [Liza's Note: We are reprinting the whole article with the author's permission]:

Put Drug Laws on Day One Docket
By Gabriel Sayegh
First published: Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Albany Times-Union

New Yorkers are waiting to see whether Gov. Eliot Spitzer's campaign slogan -- "Day One, Everything Changes"-- is genuine, or just a slogan. There are a number of issues that warrant the attention of the new administration, and reforming the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws should be a priority.

The Rockefeller Drug Laws, passed in 1973, mandate harsh mandatory minimum prison terms for simple, low-level drug offenses. Under these laws, people convicted of first-time drug offenses receive 8 to 20 years in prison. While the state spends millions of taxpayer dollars every year imprisoning drug offenders, spending on community-based drug treatment is pitifully low.

Indeed, treatment options for people with drug problems are too limited, especially for low-income people. There are more than 14,000 people in New York prisons under the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Nationwide, over 500,000 people are incarcerated on drug offenses, more than any other industrialized nation (and more than the European Union, with 100 million more residents, incarcerates for all offenses combined).

But perhaps the most despicable aspect of the Rockefeller Drug Laws is the institutional racism associated with their application. More than 90 percent of the people incarcerated under the Rockefeller Drug Laws are black and Latino, even though whites use and sell illegal drugs at approximately equal rates. There is no excuse for this disparity.