CAPITOL RALLY STAGED BY ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS OPPONENTS

ALBANY, N.Y. - Standing in front of the building where lawmakers instituted
the harshest drug statutes in the nation 26 years ago, opponents rallied
for an easing of the laws that carry the name of former Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller.
Most of the 400 people attending the rally organized Tuesday by the William
Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice were from New York City, Buffalo and
other urban areas of the state.

They heard from a varied roster of speakers, including 10-year-old Lisa
Oberg, whose mother Arlene is serving a 20-year-to-life drug sentence.

"This law is mean and unfair and cruel," the tearful girl said from the
front steps of the state Capitol.

The laws require sentences of at least 15 years to life for possession of
even relatively small amounts of hard drugs. Opponents say the laws have
consigned tens of thousands of mostly nonviolent inmates to prison rather
than to drug treatment programs, filling cells better suited to violent
felons.

Among those calling for an overhaul of the laws is state Chief Judge Judith
Kaye.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said the drug laws come down most heavily on young
blacks and Hispanics who "do not deserve the weight of the state on their
neck for the rest of their lives."

"It may be cold outside, but it's not as cold as the Rockefeller laws are,"
Sharpton declared to the chilled crowd.

The Rev. Herbert Daughtry of Brooklyn noted the drug laws were proposed by
then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller not long after he ordered the bloody retaking
of Attica state prison to end the 1971 inmate riot.

"We must of known then, or we should have known then, that anybody who is
so heartless ... surely cannot produce any kind of legislation that is
humane and compassionate and for the people," Daughtry said. "I hope God
will forgive me for not speaking so well of the dead."

Rockefeller's name was booed by the protesters whenever speakers mentioned it.

Albany's Roman Catholic bishop, Howard Hubbard, said the calls for
reforming the drug laws have also come from some of the former state
legislators who voted for them in the first place, including ex-state
Senate Majority Leader Warren Anderson.

"I'm hoping it will create a political climate where (state) leadership can
repeal these things without appearing soft on drugs," Hubbard said.

Al Lewis, the actor who portrayed "Grandpa" on the '60s television series
"The Munsters," said Rockefeller proposed the drug laws as a way of
advancing his own political career. He wanted to "be John Wayne" to the
conservative Republicans who were beginning to dominate the presidential
nominating process, Lewis contended, and whipped up a climate of hysteria
to help its passage.

"You can look it up in the library, 26 years ago," Lewis, who ran as the
Green Party's gubernatorial candidate in 1998, said. "Drugs run amok! Crazy
people running in the street! All lies. And we have to make sure that we
know that every cowardly representative in that building went along with
that and voted for the Rockefeller Drug Laws. We cannot forget that."

Gov. George Pataki reiterated Tuesday that he and his staff are reviewing
the various proposals to reform the drug laws, as well as looking at the
laws themselves and considering possible changes.

On Monday, the governor said he was troubled by the portrayal of all of the
Rockefeller offenders as nonviolent people caught up in a draconian system.

"One of the misconceptions is that there are these thousands of people who
were arrested and convicted under the Rockefeller Drug Laws who were just
minor, low-level involvees with no prior history," Pataki said. "That is
generally not the case. In the vast majority of these cases, the person
sentenced has a long record or has a massive amount of drug peddling."

The most senior member of the state's highest court after Kaye, Judge
Joseph Bellacosa, has also backed the reform movement. In a speech over the
weekend to the state Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in New York
City, Bellacosa said "the time has come" to change the laws.

"The stars may even finally be in alignment so that this utterly failed and
disastrous 25-year experiment may be substantially rectified," Bellacosa
said.