EFFORT TO REFORM DRUG LAWS HAS ONLY BEEN HALF-BAKED

THIRTY-YEAR-old Curtis Keith is in the Greenhaven Correctional Facility in
upstate New York, where he's serving a 16- to 30-year sentence for intent
to sell a half-ounce of cocaine in 1994.

Carol Brooks, 37, is doing 11 years to life at Bedford Hills, the state
prison for women, for possession and conspiracy involving one- half to 2
ounces of cocaine in 1996. At the time of her arrest, she had no criminal
record.

And Georgette Reed, 44, is doing 12 1/2 to 25 years for criminal possession
and sale of .08 grams of cocaine. When she was arrested, she had one prior
conviction-for selling a dime bag of cocaine-but got such a long sentence
because she was a second-time offender.

They are among the 22,000 inmates who are doing time in New York prisons
for drug crimes. Only a small percentage are major drug dealers. Many are
low-level, non-violent drug users who may have sold a little on the side.
But they're doing more time than many criminals do for murder, rape and
robbery.

For years, judges, drug-law reformers and inmates' families have called for
the repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws and the Second Felony Offender Law.

Both passed in 1973, the laws mandate long sentences for relatively minor
crimes. Earlier this year, Gov. George Pataki promised to make "dramatic"
changes in the laws. But he has since backtracked, coming up with a plan
that its critics say is woefully inadequate, if not downright retrograde.

"He took one step forward and two steps backward," says Randy Credico,
director of the Williams Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, which
organized a rally against the current drug laws this week outside Pataki's
Manhattan office.

Pataki's plan would allow more than 600 inmates who are serving the longest
sentences-15 to life and 25 years to life-to appeal to the state courts to
have their sentences reduced to 8 1/3 years. But it would do nothing for
the largest group of inmates: those convicted of lesser drug crimes and
repeat offenders sentenced under the Second Felony Offender Law-inmates
that include Keith, Reed and Brooks.

"They're simply on the low level of the totem pole," is how Jamie Fellner,
associate counsel to Human Rights Watch, describes most of the inmates
doing time in New York's prisons for drug crimes.

"I suggest that the cure is worse than the disease." Some say Pataki
announced his intention to reform the drug laws in order to woo black and
Latino voters away from state Comptroller H. Carl McCall, a potential
contender for the governor's job. But with the state's district attorneys
opposed to any drastic change, the governor has avoided any dramatic
reforms, his critics say.

The governor's plan won't cut it. Real reform means scrapping the Second
Felony Offender Law, increasing the amount (measured in weight) of illegal
drugs for which jail sentences would kick in and giving judges the
discretion to decide whether a convicted offender gets prison time and how
much time the offender should receive or whether to divert the defendant
into drug treatment or some alternate form of punishment.

Judges complain bitterly that because of the mandatory sentences, they are
boxed into giving long prison sentences when they don't want to. Right now,
a judge is required to sentence a second-time defendant convicted of a
minor drug crime to 4 1/2 years, whether the judge wants to or not. A
person who's convicted of selling any amount of a controlled drug-up to a
half-ounce-can be punished with a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.

When it comes to crimes involving marijuana, Pataki's "reform" plan is even
worse than the current law. Now, possessing a small amount of marijuana can
get a person a $100 fine, while three marijuana offenses in three years can
get one 15 days in jail. But under the governor's plan, a fourth marijuana
offense within five years could land a person in prison for 3 1/2 years.
This is ridiculous for a drug that has been scientifically proven to be
less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.

The governor's bill is before the state Senate, where it should be
rejected. An alternate bill soon to be introduced in the state Assembly is
better, but doesn't go nearly as far as it should.

It's time to repeal these ridiculous laws, which have clogged up the
state's prisons with low-level drug offenders. By eating up so many years
of these inmates' lives, the state has committed a bigger crime than the
people who were tried and convicted.