CHANGING THE DRUG LAWS

Four years ago, in one of his first proposals as Governor, George Pataki
announced that the time had come to revamp New York State's rigidly
Draconian drug laws. Enacted in 1973 under Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, the
laws mandated such penalties as 15 years to life for being caught with four
ounces of cocaine. Designed to suppress the drug trade, these sentences
rivaled those for murder and rape. But instead of wiping out the drug
markets, the laws overloaded prisons and court dockets with addicts and
low-level couriers.

Thus, when a Republican Governor who portrayed himself as a crime-buster
stepped up to this tough legal issue, the reformers saw him as their perfect
advocate -- able to soften drug laws without being accused of weakness, "the
Nixon-going-to-China syndrome," as one activist put it.

As it turned out, however, Mr. Pataki could not persuade many of those in
his own party to correct the mistakes of 25 years ago. So the Governor has
been quietly working around the edges to soften the impact of the
Rockefeller laws by pardoning individual prisoners and pushing for
alternative forms of incarceration, including drug treatment. Doing the
right thing quietly is better than not at all, of course, but it is time to
deal openly with a sentencing mess that many judges and law enforcement
officials have been protesting for years.

John Dunne, a former Assistant Attorney General under President Bush and
head of a bipartisan organization studying the state's drug laws, explained
earlier this year how the Rockefeller laws have failed. They have
"handcuffed our judges, filled our prisons to dangerously overcrowded
conditions and denied sufficient drug treatment alternatives to nonviolent
addicted offenders who need help," he argued in a report to the Legislature.

Some prosecutors want to retain the current laws so that a sentence of 15
years to life can still hang automatically over the head of somebody caught
selling two ounces of the hard stuff. These brutal sentences can be used to
persuade people to testify against the bigger figures in this underworld
business. But major dealers often use the most addicted or most ignorant
clients as couriers. If they are arrested and do not know enough to
implicate the bosses, they pay the full price. Thus the system tends to lean
hardest on the little guy.

Mr. Pataki's effort to right these wrongs is admirable, but he should have
the courage to confront the drug sentencing problem on the front steps of
the State Capitol rather than out the back door.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett