COALITION PUSHES FOR REPEAL OF 1970S DRUG LAWS

NEW YORK - A group of activists, elected officials, and celebrities on
Thursday called for the repeal of the state's Rockefeller-era drug laws,
demanding that Gov. George Pataki and the state Legislature get rid of them
by a June 4 deadline.

"It is unbelievable that we've allowed it to go on this long," hip-hop
entrepreneur Russell Simmons said of the decades-old laws. He was joined at
a news conference by well-known figures including Susan Sarandon, Tim
Robbins, former gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo, and presidential
hopeful Al Sharpton.

The coalition also included former inmates and parents of people
incarcerated under the drug laws.

Veronica Flournoy, 35, spent eight years in prison after she was caught
with 43/4 ounces of cocaine in 1996. The sentence was a plea bargain down
from the 15-year minimum she would have faced if convicted at trial.

Now working for an HIV treatment program, she said the laws tore apart her
family, sending her children to her mother in Florida, where they still live.

"There are loving people in there, there are caring people in there that
made a bad choice," she said of the state's drug-convicted prison
population. "They're paying for it with their entire lives."

The laws, passed in 1973 and 1974 during Gov. Nelson Rockefeller's
administration, can subject first-time offenders to 15 years to life in
prison if convicted of selling as little as 2 ounces, or possessing as
little as 4 ounces, of a controlled substance.

Opponents say the laws have not helped cut down on drug usage and
disproportionately affect minorities.

The news conference was followed by a rally of about 200 people across the
street from Pataki's city offices.

Organizers said they were confident the laws would be overturned by the
June 4 deadline but promised continued rallying and public pressure if they
are not.

Chauncey Parker, Pataki's director of criminal justice, said the Republican
governor had proposed a reform of the system that would lower the minimum
sentences for non-violent drug offenders and give judges the discretion to
send people to rehabilitation instead of prison.

But Democrats in the Legislature think his proposals don't go far enough
and some prosecutors believe they go too far.