CUOMO'S ARTICLE ON DRUG POLICY DISAPPOINTS

Andrew Cuomo's op-ed article on drug policy ("Prison inmates, Republican
constituents," Jan. 19) was disappointing.

The impact of inmate populations on political districts is a phony issue.
There are approximately 72,000 inmates in our state prisons. While that
number is far too high, it is smaller than the population of an Assembly
district and trivial when it comes to political districting.

One might ask where Andrew Cuomo was when his father did nothing about drug
policy reform. Federal drug sentencing is often harsher than the
Rockefeller Drug Laws, yet Cuomo never criticized Bill Clinton for doing
nothing. If drug policy reform is a Democrat issue, why isn't Eliot Spitzer
challenging it in court? Instead, Spitzer's office enthusiastically
participates in the prosecutions.

Cuomo's solution -- judicial discretion -- is also phony. While some judges
exercise their discretion in favor of leniency, others impose harsher
sentences than the minimums. Judicial discretion leads to arbitrary
sentencing. Real drug policy reform restores discretion to people.

That brings us to Andrew Cuomo's real purpose. He's playing hatchet man for
his party -- trying to turn Gov. George Pataki into the latest boogeyman.
It's political games, raising the other guy's negatives. I'm not satisfied
with the latest reforms, but the current crop of Democrat proposals are not
that different.

If Cuomo and Spitzer want to embody the drug policy reform movement, let
them embrace its mantra -- no one should go to prison for what they put in
their body.

WARREN REDLICH, Guilderland

The writer was the 2004 Republican candidate for 21st Congressional
District of New York.