THANKS, GOV, FOR GETTING OFF ROCKY ROAD

TWO cheers for Gov. Pataki for announcing he intends to reform the
inflexible, ineffective and inhumane Rockefeller Drug Law.

Only a Republican could have seized this kind of initiative.

My third cheer will be shouted when Pataki's words become law, we know the
details, and treatment dollars are in the budget.

The Rockefeller Drug Law was signed on May 8, 1973 in a grand ceremony. At
the signing, Rocky attacked some of the "political opportunists" who warned
that the law was an unworkable overreaction to the rising fear of crime.

When he was provoked to identify this cabal of bleeding hearts, Rockefeller
named "the district attorneys' association, and there were police officials
up here opposing it."

From the beginning, many experienced law-enforcement professionals knew
the law was a public-relations hoax, inspired by the governor's national
ambitions.

They knew it would do nothing to incarcerate the drug lords, but would ruin
the lives of small fry by imposing a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years
to life for possession of 4 ounces of cocaine.

They also knew this big, dumb law would deprive judges of all discretion at
sentencing.

And that this law was based on the weight of the drugs seized - not on the
role in the drug trade of the person arrested.

The narcotics cops knew that Nicky Barnes didn't carry drugs, but that his
youngest couriers and hit men did.

And, of course, the Rockefeller law did not allocate one dollar for
drug-abuse treatment or job creation.

By the late 1970s, I was getting heartbreaking letters from the small-fry
casualties of this hoax.

From women who were doing 15 to life in Bedford Hills because their
boyfriends had stashed drugs in their baby carriages, and now their
children were lost to foster care.

From nonviolent college students with no prior arrests, doing 15 for
buying a few ounces of coke for personal use.

Today, there are about 600 nonviolent offenders in state prison serving
long sentences under the Rockefeller law.

On Jan. 17, Pataki proposed a 10-point program to amend the "overly severe
provisions" of the Rockefeller law. Pataki said he wanted to reduce
sentences for nonviolent repeat felony drug offenders.

The governor also wants to restore judges' flexibility in sentencing and to
expand court-supervised drug treatment.

The timing is a result of the public's reduced fear, following eight
straight years during which violent-crime rates have gone down.

And it must be acknowledged that a big reason that crime has gone down so
much is that 65,000 criminals are now locked away in state prisons. And the
police have done an outstanding job.

It also should be acknowledged that Pataki has taken other "liberal"
initiatives-banning assault weapons, using tobacco taxes for children's
health care, signing a hate-crimes bill.

And by taking the lead on amending this law, Pataki knows he is freeing the
Democrats to fight for even deeper changes.

If this drug-law reform becomes law, experts predict there will be 5,000
fewer drug offenders incarcerated each year. This would free up the money
to expand drug-treatment facilities, since it costs the taxpayers $30,000 a
year to house each inmate.

And none of this would affect the hard-core, violent recidivists who belong
in prison, and whose absence from the streets is keeping the crime rate down.

My interviews with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Pataki's
criminal-justice coordinator, Katherine Lapp suggest a bill should be ready
in a month, and passed by June, with a lot of debate over the details

I have covered the courts for 30 years, and there is one thing I know with
certainty.

Drug offenders will enter treatment with a sincere desire to become sober
only when that treatment is offered as an alternative to prison.

The specter of 10 years in Attica is the most effective motivator to get
clean in residential treatment.

But this is the very discretion the Rockefeller law took away from judges,
robbing them of that moment of flexibility - when they could look into the
eyes of a defendant convicted of personal-use possession and make a
judgment if this individual should get time or a shot at treatment.