SENATE SHOULD STAND TOUGH

We're pleased that the New York State Senate refused to bow to
pressure from the pro-drug use lobby that wanted to gut the state's
anti-drug trafficking laws.

Year after year, we listen to the whining of the recreational drug use
lobby that claims New York State's laws are just too harsh.

We think they currently send a strong message to people who sell drugs
for a living that if they persist in making money by selling poisons
to our children, sooner or later they'll pay a stiff price for their
actions.

Critics of the state's drug laws would like everyone to think that the
state 's prisons are filled with people who were arrested for
possession of minor quantities of drugs.

You hear them constantly claiming that first time offenders are being
shipped off to prison for life for small sales.

Yet anyone who watches the North Country's criminal justice system
each week soon notices that the vast majority of people busted for
selling drugs are not sent to prison. Most don't even end up in state
prison.

The harsh penalties in the current statutes tend to convince most drug
dealers to cooperate with law enforcement to help police catch bigger
fish.

It also convinces most dealers to plead to lesser charges and to agree
to enroll in in-patient treatment programs to rid themselves of their
addictions.

In the vast majority of cases where drug dealers are sentenced to
state prison, they don't actually go to a regular state prison. They
go to the Willard Drug Treatment or shock incarceration programs, and
they are back on the street in a few months.

Prosecutors argue that their focus is on getting drug abusers into
treatment because jail time by itself does not change the underlying
problem.

By allowing them to plead to lesser offenses, they can be monitored on
probation or parole for longer periods, allowing the criminal justice
system to monitor their behavior for several years.

While the pro-drug use lobby likes to argue that drug abuse is more of
a public health problem that should handled with treatment instead of
as a criminal justice issue, the reality is that the current drug
statutes serve as a powerful incentive to drug dealers to enroll in
in-patient treatment programs to shake their addictions.

State legislators should be careful about weakening the laws that
would take away the incentive for drug abusers to get clean. The state
senate offered reasonable compromises, but the pro-drug use lobby
seems to want to encourage even more drug use.