DIVERSE GROUP TAKES DRUG LAW FIGHT OFF THE STREETS

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) Their small but growing army consists of NRA-members,
feminists, doctors, businessmen, ex-cops and a federal judge.

They are on the attack against the war against drugs. Instead of the
streets, their battlefields are Rotary Clubs, Kiwanis' gatherings and the
classroom. Their group is called ReconsiDer and they say drug policies in
America, and especially in New York, have been an abysmal failure and should
be dumped.

"We should have learned from Prohibition that criminal sanctions don't
work," semiretired U.S. District Judge John T. Curtin says to nearly 200
business and civic leaders at a recent Thursday Morning Roundtable, a weekly
breakfast lecture hosted by Syracuse University.

"The financial and social impact of what we are doing ... With all the
things we have to do in society, we could put those resources to better
purposes," says Curtin, an ex-Marine who was appointed to the federal bench
by Lyndon Johnson and presided over the desegregation of Buffalo schools,
prosecution of the Attica prison uprising and the Love Canal chemical dumping.

Current drug policy is uncontrolled, racist and encourages crime, violence,
unfair prosecution and imprisonment, the disintegration of families and the
abuse of children who are used as drug traffickers, Curtin tells the group.

When his 20-minute talk is concluded, Curtin is peppered with questions. But
they are not hostile ones. The mostly suit-clad and gray-haired listeners
want more information. As the breakfast breaks up, a woman at a front table
turns to her neighbor and says: "I've never thought about it like that before."

ReconsiDer members consider it another battle won.

"People just don't know the realities of this failed policy," said Nicholas
Eyle, of Syracuse, a freelance photographer who help co-found ReconsiDer in
1992.

"That's what we are about. Getting that information out," he said.

ReconsiDer does not advocate legalization or decriminalization of drugs. It
contends only that the current system is leading to the incarceration of
nonviolent people for unfairly long periods of time for drug offenses and
that change is needed fast, Eyle said.

From a livingroom discussion group, ReconsiDer has evolved into a statewide
organization with more than 300 members and chapters in Syracuse, Albany,
Binghamton and Ogdensburg and others forming in Buffalo and Westchester
County. Nearly two dozen like organizations are carrying out similar
campaigns in 14 other states.

ReconsiDer has increased its efforts during the past two years as New York
lawmakers have debated ever more openly reforming the so-called Rockefeller
drug laws, which carry the nation's harshest penalties for drug use and
possession.

People can be sentenced to 15-years-to-life in prison for possessing 4
ounces or more of a controlled substance or for selling 2 ounces or more.

Advocates for easing the harshest of the penalties include the state's chief
judge, Judith Kaye, Cardinal John O'Connor and the state's Roman Catholic
bishops, and a coalition which includes some of the same state legislators
who voted in 1973 to institute the harshest of the statutes.

Even Laurence Rockefeller has come out in favor of reform, saying his
brother would have recognized the inequities and the failures of the law had
he lived long enough.

The White House's drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, told a state-sponsored
conference on drug treatment in Albany in late June that harsh prison
sentences are not the answer to combatting drug and alcohol addictions: "I
don't think we can ask the law enforcement community to arrest us out of
this problem," he said.

Gov. George Pataki has proposed a modest scaling back of the statutes, but
tied it to the virtual elimination of parole for nonviolent felons. Assembly
Speaker Sheldon Silver has called that proposal "not real reform" and has
refused to advance an Assembly Democratic counterplan.

State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno raised the spirits of the
anti-Rockefeller Drug Law advocates last month by suggesting in his
strongest terms yet that the hard-line, Republican-controlled Senate might
find a reform of laws appropriate.

Mike Smithson, who coordinates ReconsiDer's speakers, says the public feels
much the same way as the drug law opponents do. His volunteer duty is
becoming a full time job. Since January, he is booking between 15 and 25
appearances a month. In the fall, ReconsiDer will have speakers out on the
college circuit.

"People see that it's not 'soft on drugs' to favor reduced sentencing and
other alternatives," Smithson said. "In 30 years, we haven't reduced drug
use. All we've done is build a massive prison system, turn tens of thousands
of otherwise-law abiding citizens into criminals and misspend $100 billion."

While its impact on drug trafficking is debatable, it goes without
questioning that the drug laws have significantly contributed to the surge
in prison population in New York. In 1973, there were 14,700 inmates in 18
state prisons; in 1999, there are more than 70,000 inmates in 70 prisons.
About one-third are jailed on drug crimes, and the overwhelming majority of
those are either black or Hispanic.

The imprisoning of drug offenders is a relatively recent development in
American crime and punishment.

From 1776 until the mid-1910s, drugs were legal and unregulated. Users were
treated, if at all, as a public health problem, not a criminal one. That is
the course modern America should follow, too, said Dr. Gene Tinelli, an
addictions psychiatrist at the U.S. Veterans Administration Hospital in
Syracuse.

"There is no scientific data that shows putting people in prison lowers drug
abuse or addiction," said Tinelli, a ReconsiDer member. "Where is the
medical expertise for drug policy in this country?"

ReconsiDer finds it odd that the government bars no holds in its battle
against illegal drugs, yet pursues a much less aggressive stance on alcohol
and tobacco, legal drugs people consume every day that take a much greater
toll. According to the government's own studies, alcohol and tobacco use are
linked to up to 400,000 deaths yearly in the United States. Tinelli noted
that both are considered primarily health problems.

William Fitzpatrick is the district attorney in Onondaga County, which like
many upstate counties has been fighting an invasion by New York City-based
drug rings. ReconsiDer's thinking is a "quick-fix scheme" that will carry
"horrific consequences," said Fitzpatrick, president of the New York State
District Attorneys Association.

Not only would drug use increase, said Fitzpatrick, health care costs would
soar even further, while workers' compensation claims would skyrocket; child
abuse and domestic violence cases would increase; and the poorest
neighborhoods would suffer most from the degradation, debilitation and
lawlessness.

"We still have pimps in Nevada, where prostitution is legal. We still have
bookies in Atlantic City," Fitzpatrick said. "And we will still have turf
wars, drive-by shootings and all kinds of violence associated with drug
trafficking."