DRUG LAWS AREN'T A N.Y. TRAVESTY

The state Legislature's recent retreat home, after another failure on a
budget, allows breathing room on other policy matters being distorted by
mythology, in particular the Rockefeller drug laws. They've been likened to
an albatross around the judicial system's neck when they haven't created
the horrors critics like to shout about.

New York's response to the drug crisis of the 1960s and '70s became a set
of tougher penalties - advocated by then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller - the most
serious making it an A-1 felony to possess a sales-level weight of illegal
narcotics.

Modern critics call the "draconian Rockefeller drug laws" most cruel in
that drug couriers get sent away for 15 years to life - the same sentence
given to some killers.

A few hard-luck stories emphasize their point.

In truth, the judicial system provides enough elasticity so that even
career pushers avoid life terms, not just in New York City but here in
Cayuga County. The system provides for discretion by police, judges and
prosecutors so first-time felony offenders seldom if ever receive life
sentences and can end up in treatment programs rather than jail. A study in
1997, when prison officials were complaining of overcrowding, showed that
only 4.5 percent of all inmates were incarcerated on possession-only
offenses, and all of those inmates had prior convictions. District Attorney
James Vargason reports that in 10 years, his office has prosecuted only
four A-1 felony drug cases.

As for those hard-luck stories, consider a couple presented to the Senate
Codes Committee in April. Michael Belos of Schenectady County is serving 8
1/3 to 25 years for possessing a few dollars worth of crack cocaine, more
time than Joel Steinburg got for torturing and murdering his child, the
committee was told. As it turns out, Belos is Marichal Belo, who when
arrested for cocaine possession with intent to sell had an eight-page,
multi-state rap sheet that included assaults and burglaries. Jeffrey Hilts
is serving 15-30 years for holding less than $200 in crack, the committee
learned, but wasn't told he had roughly 30 arrests and 20 convictions in
nine violent years.

The state District Attorneys Association is trying to blunt wholesale
change to the drug laws. The prosecutors are especially worried about an
Assembly proposal that prods judges to consider treatment and
rehabilitation programs for any defendant linking his crimes, even violent
crimes, to addictions. Defendants could invoke an "addiction defense" at
any time their case wends through the courts, tossing prosecutors back to
square one. The Assembly proposal seems to forget that drug trafficking
leads to real violence and real victims of robberies, burglaries and assaults.

New York lawmakers and interested parties should seek out the right mix of
improvements. But in the current system, judges are not forced to impose
life sentences on first-time losers.

And the system does allow treatment as an option.

Reports of draconian justice are greatly exaggerated.