PROPOSAL OFFERS LESSER PENALTIES FOR DRUGS

New Mexico could reduce its prison population, save money and reduce crime
by lowering penalties for drug possession and street-level sales and
emphasizing treatment of addicts, a defense lawyer told legislators Friday.

"I am here today because I am appalled by the number of individuals being
sentenced to prison for possession of drugs and low-level trafficking,"
Jacqueline Cooper, a felony public defender in Albuquerque, told lawmakers
on the interim Courts and Criminal Justice Committee.

"We need to treat drug offenders for what they are. They are addicts ...
they are mentally ill people with substance-abuse problems," Cooper said.

Under a proposal that Cooper outlined for the committee, first and second
drug-possession charges would be dropped to misdemeanors with mandatory
treatment as a condition of probation. Currently, possession of narcotic
drugs - even in trace amounts - is treated as a fourth-degree felony.

Cooper also proposed different penalties in state trafficking laws
according to the amount of drugs being given away or sold - a distinction
that is currently not on the books.

"The vast majority of the trafficking cases are for one-rock (crack) sales
to undercover police officers, and these people are drug addicts," she said.

Dealers who get caught twice selling minor amounts of crack face an 18-year
mandatory jail sentence - about the same they would get for raping a child,
and three years more than what they'd get for a conviction of second-degree
murder, Cooper said.

"People who sell one rock of crack cocaine are not the same as people
selling 1 kilo of cocaine. They should not be treated the same," she said.

Rep. Joe Mohorovic, R-Albuquerque, said trying to reduce penalties for
low-level drug deals is a move in the "wrong direction."

He said he coaches football in Albuquerque, and his 13-year-old players are
often approached after practice by gang members trying to entice recruits
by giving away rocks of crack cocaine.

"This proposal will curtail law enforcement's ability to crack down on gang
recruitment," Mohorovic said. "Those gang recruiters, they don't need drug
treatment. They don't need counseling. They need to go to jail."

But William Parnall, president of the New Mexico Criminal Defense Lawyers
Association, turned the argument on its head. He said a 13-year-old
football player who accepts that rock of crack should receive drug
counseling - not be saddled with a fourth-degree felony.

"A football player with a crack problem should have a different penalty
than the one who is providing the stuff, who really is trafficking,"
Parnall said.

Rep. R. David Pederson, D-Gallup, said it "doesn't seem to make a lot of
sense" that state penalties for possession of illegal drugs other than
marijuana do not differentiate between possession amounts - even when it's
just a trace of drug residue that's found.

According to statistics provided by Cooper, about 20 percent of prison
admissions in New Mexico in 1996 and 1997 were for drug offenses. Of 1,377
people sent to prison in fiscal year 1997, 286 were convicted of breaking
drug laws, with 94 percent of those convicted of possession only.

She said it will cost an estimated $26 million for the state to keep those
286 drug offenders from 1997 incarcerated for the length of their sentences.

Making first- and second-possession charges misdemeanors instead of
felonies would keep offenders from being "stripped of their constitutional
rights" - including loss of the right to vote, bear arms, and serve in the
military, as well as the ability to maintain stable employment - for
substance-abuse problems, Cooper said.

And because misdemeanor cases move more quickly through the courts,
offenders could promptly be put into treatment programs, rather than
returned to the streets to continue using drugs and committing crimes while
awaiting trial, she said.

First Judicial District Attorney Henry Valdez said the state District
Attorneys Association will be drafting a formal response to Cooper's
proposal. He said one concern is that drug dealers will adjust their
methods to take advantage of any reduction to misdemeanor penalties for
low-quantity sales.

"If you set it at a fifth of a gram, that's what people are going to sell,"
Valdez said.

The committee is expected to further consider the proposal - and whether to
support it during next year's legislative session - at a meeting in November.

Dave Miller, legislative liaison for Republican Gov. Gary Johnson, said he
was "very encouraged" to see legislators addressing drug laws with
apparently open minds, and without the partisan grenades that Democratic
lawmakers have been heaving on the governor since he started talking about
the need for new drug policies.

"To a certain degree, we felt we've been out wandering the desert in this
last year, looking for allies," Miller said.

"Politically, I'm encouraged, because that is a part of the problem we're
having right now, is just getting policy makers to talk about it."