CAGE-RATTLING FOR REFORM OF DRUG LAWS

FILM called "While You Were Sleeping" was on television yesterday, and for
a moment the temptation to tune in was strong. Figured it might be required
viewing for a New York columnist. With a title like that, it had to be a
documentary about Albany, right?

Figured wrong. This was a light comedy, with Sandra Bullock as a woman who
sells tokens in a Chicago train station. Remember tokens?

O.K., enough with the kidding. The fact nonetheless remains that putting
"sleeping" and "Albany" in the same thought is not unreasonable, given the
chronic inaction by the governor and the State Legislature on several
issues that everyone concerned swears are as important as could be.

One that comes instantly to mind is what to do about the severe New York
drug laws that date to the early 1970's and bear the name of the governor
who championed them, Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Over the years, a remarkably broad political consensus has formed that the
Rockefeller laws do not work as intended, and that too many people are
serving too-long prison sentences for possessing, in many cases, quite
small amounts of drugs. Some penny-ante offenders, often nonviolent, are
doing more time - 15 years to life - than people who have killed.

"We have not found a Pablo Escobar in the New York State jail system," said
Randy Credico, director of Mothers of the New York Disappeared, a group of
relatives of drug-law inmates. Since nearly all the prisoners are blacks or
Latinos, charges of racism inevitably arise, fairly or not.

Supporters of change say that most violators would do better with treatment
and counseling. Give the courts more discretion to accomplish that, they
say, instead of inflexibly requiring judges to send people up the river,
possibly for life. Besides, it is argued, New York State would save bundles
of money, because keeping people behind bars is not cheap. Some lawmakers
estimate the potential savings at $160 million or more a year. In an era of
budget deficits, they say, that cannot be shrugged off as chump change.

Those, in any event, are the arguments. They are, for sure, not embraced by
everyone. Prosecutors in particular like the situation as it is; it gives
them, not some judge, the real authority to decide what happens to a person
facing drug charges.

But the anti-Rockefeller chorus keeps rising, and it spans the political
spectrum, right to left. Gov. George E. Pataki, a Republican, has long
called reform overdue. Ditto for another key member of the Albany pas de
trois, Sheldon Silver, the Democratic Assembly speaker. Even members of the
Rockefeller family want to "drop the Rock," to borrow the slogan of an
advocacy group called the Correctional Association of New York. Laurance S.
Rockefeller, one of Nelson's brothers, has cautioned that "overly harsh
laws and punishments have reduced faith in government."

AS for voters - you know, those supposedly ultimate arbiters - they have
made their views clear in opinion surveys. A New York Times poll last
October showed that 79 percent favored changing the law, with 83 percent
saying that drug rehabilitation should be an option.

Yet Albany sleeps, though representatives of Mr. Pataki and Mr. Silver
reaffirmed yesterday that the goal remains, as ever, to produce what each
called "meaningful drug-law reform."

The long stagnation led Andrew M. Cuomo, who ran unsuccessfully for
governor last year, to ask rhetorically this week, "How has it gone on so
long, especially when we have such a broad coalition supporting changing
the laws?"

Even the prospect of saving real money in a fiscal crisis has not proved a
winning argument. "We think it makes the case undeniably more compelling,"
said Robert Gangi, the Correctional Association's executive director. "But
we have not seen it yet gain traction."

Now joining the scrimmage are leading figures of the hip-hop world,
including Russell Simmons and Sean Combs, whose preferred nom de rap these
days is P. Diddy. They said at a news conference the other day that they
would lead a rally near City Hall on Wednesday to demand repeal of laws
that Mr. Combs called "unjust" and "very racist."

Mind you, the officials they hope to influence are, for the most part, not
racing to apply for green card status, let alone citizenship, in the
hip-hop nation. But if the rally is big enough, things could get interesting.

"We're going to be loud," Mr. Combs said. Who knows? If they're really
loud, they might make it harder to sleep in Albany.