'EASE DRUG LAWS'

DA Wants Reform

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau is urging state lawmakers to
begin overhauling the Rockefeller drug laws as they return to Albany this week.

Morgenthau's proposed reforms - the most detailed of any of the state's DAs
- - would toughen sentences for violent and repeat drug felons while
channeling low-level dealers away from the current mandatory prison
sentences and into treatment.

Albany also needs to increase funding for drug treatment and prevention
programs, the DA said in announcing his reforms at a press conference
yesterday.

"It's a supply problem and a demand problem," he said of the drug scourge.
"And the demand side is dealt with through drug treatment, drug education
and other prevention programs."

The DA urged lawmakers to:

* Require judges set determinate sentences in drug cases. Currently, judges
set sentencing ranges - two to six years prison for a drug dealer, for
instance. With good behavior, that inmate may actually be freed on work
release in only six months.

* Abolish mandatory state prison sentences for low-level dealers. Judges
should have the discretion to impose lesser sentences for defendants who
have no prior record or other mitigating circumstances.

* Draft a "kingpin statute" to make it easier to apply the toughest drug
sentence - 25 years to life in prison - to leaders of drug organizations.

* Give judges more discretion in sentencing the most serious drug felons.
Currently, dealers can be sent to prison for 15 years to life - or even as
much as 25 years to life - for selling as little as two ounces of cocaine,
even if it 's a first offense.

"There has been a tremendous amount of evidence that treatment works," said
Mitchell Rosenthal, president of Phoenix House, who joined Morgenthau in
asking for drug law reform.

It's also cost-effective, he said, noting that treatment is less expensive
and results in lower re-arrest rates than prison.

Still, the DA said, "Significant mandatory prison sentences are still
needed to ensure that serious offenses and repeat offenders receive
appropriate punishment; they are also essential if we want to keep crime down."