PATAKI DRUG EFFORT FAULTED

Dialogue Continues On Rockefeller Laws

Albany - Gov. George Pataki's attempt to resurrect the stalled debate over
the state's restrictive Rockefeller-era drug laws was faulted yesterday by
advocates who said it still did not live up to the sweeping reform he
originally promised.

Pataki's revised plan would give judges more power to decide whether drug
offenders should receive treatment. But it still would require most
nonviolent addicts to receive treatment in prison instead of getting help
without being incarcerated, as advocates insist.

"We're really concerned that this proposal comes up very, very short," said
John Coppola, director of the Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers of
New York State. He said Pataki's latest plan offered no new treatment programs.

In January, Pataki promised to dramatically overhaul the Rockefeller laws,
enacted in 1973 in an attempt to stem widespread abuse of cocaine and heroin.

But Pataki's proposals have not been embraced by the Democrat-controlled
Assembly.

"What he is really looking for is for negotiations to start in earnest,"
said Katherine Lapp, director of Pataki's Division of Criminal Justice
Services. "He looked to see where we might have some common ground."
Assembly Democrats, however, said the new proposal did not ameliorate their
existing concerns that Pataki's plan did not go far enough.

The Rockefeller laws linked long prison sentences to relatively small
quantities of drugs, giving prosecutors more control over punishment.
Repeal advocates argue that the laws have effectively overcrowded the
state's prisons with nonviolent drug offenders serving lengthy terms.

The issue impeding the negotiations has been the fate of low-level
narcotics dealers who fall into the B felony category. Pataki and the
Assembly have always agreed that judges should determine whether those
charged with possession should be eligible for treatment instead of jail.
But the Assembly wants to extend that option to low-level narcotics peddlers.

Pataki's most recent proposal, however, mandates that B level offenders
plead guilty to a felony and receive the first nine months of drug
counseling while in prison. Corrections officials would have to determine
that the in-house rehabilitation was successful before an offender could
participate in a community program.

"Any plan without community-based treatment is totally unacceptable," said
John Dunne, the former Garden City Republican state senator who helped
write the Rockefeller laws but is now leading a campaign to revise them.
"Is it offering anything new? The answer is no."