'$OROS' D.A. DRUG OUTRAGE

Upstater Rips U.S. Policy As a Racket

May 4, 2006 -- ALBANY - The upstate district attorney bankrolled by
billionaire George Soros has bashed America's drug policies as a scam
to give those in the criminal-justice system "a wonderful living."

Speaking Tuesday at a drug-law liberalization conference in
Vancouver, Canada, Albany County District Attorney David Soares said
the system is designed to hire more cops, judges, and prosecutors,
and officials are afraid to reform it.

The U.S. war on drugs is a scheme by authorities to "give people a
wonderful living," he said.

Soros, a tycoon, philanthropist and major contributor to Democratic
causes, favors the repeal of some drug laws.

Soares, taking on the role of policing in drug enforcement, said the
drug war lands mostly young black and Hispanic men in prison and
helps feed an accepted "economic-development strategy" of building
more prisons.

"My advice to Canada is, stay as completely far away from U.S.
drug-law policy as possible," Soares said after addressing the 17th
International Conference on the Reduction of Drug-Related Harm.

Soares, who is in his first term as DA, was ripped as an "ideologue"
and "one person crying in the wilderness" by a fellow DA and
president of the state District Attorneys Association, Frank Clark,
of Erie County.

"There isn't a straight-thinking person in this country who would
agree with something like that," Clark said.

Albany Police Chief James Tuffey questioned why the DA would impugn
the integrity of law-enforcement officials while also criticizing the
United States in a foreign country.

"I think it's a slap at every law-enforcement officer who puts his
life on the line every day to protect the people," Tuffey said.

"We all want to reduce the violence and drug trading, and I think we
need the people elected as prosecutors to support us in our endeavor."

He added that "we're not doing the enforcement of the drug laws so
the officers can get rich."

Soares scored a surprise election victory in 2004 after receiving
heavy funding from the Working Families Party, which had received
$81,500 from the Soros-backed Drug Policy Alliance Network.

Much of that money was used for mailings in support of Soares, who
defeated the incumbent DA in a bitter Democratic primary.

The Drug Policy Alliance said it did not financially back this week's
Vancouver conference. But officials with Soros-backed organizations
were in attendance, sources said.

In explaining the "harm reduction" approach on its Web site, the Drug
Policy Alliance Network cites the need to change an "overemphasis" on
the prohibition of drugs as well as on arrests and incarceration for drug use.

Randy Credico, director of the William Kunstler Fund for Racial
Justice, called Soares "a hero" and "gutsy."

"He is the DA history will remember as the one who shined light on a
very, very evil period in the nation's history," Credico said.