THOSE DARN DRUG LAWS

Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver has come up with a winning-formula response
to what he thinks is the biggest drug problem facing New York:

Just say no.

That's the message to be taken from Gov. Pataki's latest proposal to reform
the (as the tired cliche goes) "draconian" Rockefeller drug laws.

This isn't the first time Pataki has submitted a plan to change the laws.

But every other proposal emanating from the governor's office has been shot
down by the Assembly speaker, mostly because they tied drug-law reform to
an outright ban on parole for all offenders.

So now Pataki's trying again.

The Pataki plan increases the role of judges (notoriously lenient in New
York City) and reduces the role of prosecutors (usually tough on offenders,
except in The Bronx) in deciding which defendants get treatment instead of
jail time.

Moreover, now Pataki is proposing get-out-of-jail cards for dope dealers as
well as those convicted merely of possession.

True, the plan as written includes numerous safeguards designed to keep
those judges from giving away the store - "tough, but smart," Pataki says.

But those safeguards are far stricter than anything Speaker Silver is
likely to approve. There is, in fact, nothing in this realm that will
satisfy Silver - so why does the governor feel the need to treat with him
in the first place?

And, in particular, by removing the link between sentencing reform and an
outright ban on parole for all offenders.

Just how political is Pataki's plan?

Well, consider that its public face isn't the governor's able Criminal
Justice Commissioner, Katherine Lapp, but Randy Daniels - Pataki's recently
appointed secretary of state and a fellow best known as a one-time deputy
mayor to David Dinkins.

Says Daniels: "This shows the governor is serious about reforming the
Rockefeller-era drug laws that I think everybody universally considers to
be draconian."

Not so.

As we've noted on any number of occasions, the "universal" perception is
just wrong: The number of first-offender, non-violent felons doing
"Rockefeller time" is fewer than 100 in a prison population of more than
77,000 - or fewer than one one-hundredth of 1 percent.

Meanwhile, fewer than 10 percent of all those convicted of a non-violent,
first-time drug offense go to jail to begin with.

And nearly three-quarters of those actually serving time for drug crimes
are second-felony offenders - hard-core criminals, that is.

That's the reality of the "draconian" sentencing law.

We understand why Silver chooses to pretend otherwise.

It's not quite so clear why Pataki is playing along.