PROSECUTOR'S DRUG TALK RAISES IRE

Vancouver Speech By David Soares Draws Rebuke From Police Chief, Sheriff

ALBANY -- A speech by Albany County District Attorney David Soares in
Canada attacking U.S. drug policies has drawn criticism from top
county law enforcement officials.

U.S. lawmakers, judges and prosecutors know the system doesn't work
well, "but they support it anyway because it provides law enforcement
officials with lucrative jobs," Soares said Tuesday in a speech at
the 17th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug-Related
Harm in Vancouver.

"You (Canada) are headed in the right direction," Soares said.

Soares' remarks aggravated an already strained relationship with law
enforcement officials in Albany County.

Albany Police Chief James Tuffey said he needs clarification on
whether Soares actually intends to enforce the state's drug laws.
"When he comes back, he really needs to meet with us to explain,"
Tuffey said. "It's disingenuous to the officers who go out every day
who are not highly paid, contrary to what he said."

Albany County Sheriff James Campbell said, "For 41 years I've been
doing this, and it's a slap. I am as angry as I am disappointed."

Soares urged Canadian officials to steer clear of the United States'
"ineffective" drug policies, in remarks that echoed criticisms he
made of New York's strict Rockefeller Drug Laws during his election
campaign two years ago.

His talk drew a standing ovation from among the 1,500 convention
delegates representing 93 countries.

Soares' criticism of the 1970s-era Rockefeller Drug Laws were central
to his successful 2004 campaign for district attorney. Soares soundly
defeated the one-term incumbent, Paul Clyne, a Rockefeller Drug Laws
supporter, in a contentious Albany County Democratic primary.

American lawmakers "lack the willpower to reform drug laws despite
their ineffectiveness at curbing drug use and crime because 'reform
is scary,' " Soares told the Canadians. He also claimed the U.S.
penchant for building prisons was an accepted "economic development strategy."

Soares has an ideological ally in Albany defense attorney Terence L.
Kindlon, who agreed with his analysis.

"He is to be applauded for speaking the truth in the face of
conventional wisdom," Kindlon said. "Our drug policies are
irrational, stupid, expensive and destructive."

Kindlon said New York's harsh drug laws are a failure. "They have not
stopped drug use, they have pointlessly warehoused in prisons
thousands of young minority men, for countless numbers of years," he said.

Sue Curry, the co-director of the Vancouver conference, agreed that
rehabilitation, not prosecution and punishment, counters drug abuse
and addiction.

Soares "put a spotlight" on the need to take a holistic approach to
drug cases, rather than just a moral one, said Curry, a Canadian
citizen who lives and works in San Francisco.

"People forget that substance abuse is a health and medical issue,"
she said, likening it to obesity. "Do we then cut people off from
food completely? Or do we try to make their lives better?"

Soares' trip to the conference was paid for by its organizers, said
Rachel McEneny, his spokeswoman. She said reporters as far away as
London had requested interviews with Soares shortly after the story
was posted on the Internet in Canada.