HOPES FOR DRUG-LAW REFORM DASHED

ALBANY (GNS)-- Hopes for a last-minute deal to overhaul the state's drug
laws collapsed Thursday as Republican Gov. George Pataki and the
GOP-controlled Senate remained far from Assembly Democrats on how to do it.

A host of other major issues also remained unresolved on the last scheduled
day of the Legislature's session, including efforts to ban smoking in
restaurants and hike the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.75.

Pataki and the Assembly and Senate leaders met for an hour at day's end and
said they will continue talks on the big issues. The Assembly will extend
its session into next week, and the Senate might return as well.

Advocates for drug-law reform who traveled here from New York City left
disappointed as each side of the debate blamed the other for the impasse.

"I thank them again for traveling up to Albany to make their case and wish
them success in pushing the Assembly to get back to the table for more
talks," Pataki said in a written statement.

But the group, about a dozen members of Mothers of the Disappeared, who
have relatives in prison on drug charges, said it's Pataki's fault there's
no deal.

"We hold the governor responsible for the breakdown in negotiations," said
Elaine Bartlett, a 42-year-old Manhattan woman who served 16 years in
prison for the top drug charge and whose husband remains locked up for a
drug deal involving four ounces of cocaine.

New York's laws, passed during Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's tenure in 1973,
are some of the nation's strictest. They require prison time for anyone
convicted of a second felony and impose sentences of 15 years to life for
the top offenders, those convicted of selling two ounces or possessing four
ounces of narcotics.

Pataki, the Senate and the Assembly have advanced different reform
proposals. Reform advocates say the plans by Pataki and the Senate don't go
far enough to allow drug defendants who are addicted to get drug treatment.
Prosecutors say the Assembly proposal, which would give judges more
discretion in sentencing and treatment decisions, would allow too many drug
criminals to escape prison time.

Bartlett said she was not addicted to drugs but desperate for money when
she and her husband transported four ounces of cocaine. He remains locked
up. Bartlett said she believes five years of probation and community
service would have been a fair punishment. "I'm not saying that I didn't
commit a crime, but what I'm saying is the crime didn't warrant 20 years
out of my life," Bartlett said. Jan Warren served 12 years for her part in
a drug deal in Rochester involving eight ounces of cocaine that would have
netted her $2,000.

"It was an answer to my problem of not having money ... of being pregnant,"
Warren said. Warren, who also said she was not addicted to drugs, added she
grew up in the more drug-tolerant '60s. "It wasn't considered harmful in
the sense that we were hurting other people" to sell drugs.

The chief problem with current laws is they don't allow judges to hear
people's stories and adjust punishments accordingly, said Warren, who lives
in Manhattan.

But a Republican lawmaker said the Senate would never go along with a
reform bill unless it mandated that drug offenders faced prison time if
they didn't complete treatment programs. Without that threat, there's no
leverage for making people comply, said Sen. Dale Volker, R-Depew, Erie County.

"We're not going to do a jail break," Volker said "We're not going to do
the same nonsense that New York City's done ... let people out on the
street and say, 'Go get some treatment.' "