IF NOT NOW ...

The politics are finally favorable for real reforms to the overly rigid
Rockefeller drug laws.

After years of legislative paralysis, Albany appears primed to reform the
tough Rockefeller drug laws to allow treatment instead of prison for more
of the state's nonviolent addicts. It's about time.

Ideally Albany would simply scrap the 1973 laws and their indiscriminate
mandatory prison sentences. Judges should be allowed to exercise the
judgment they're paid for and fit penalties to individual crimes and
defendants. Right now, they can't.

Assembly Democrats who favor repeal have backed off in a nod to political
reality. Gov. George Pataki and Senate Republicans have simply been
unwilling to go along. But this is an election year. Pataki is courting
black and Hispanic voters who favor repeal. So there is a small window of
opportunity, although one that is closing fast as the legislature nears
adjournment. Democrats should seize the moment and bargain hard for reform
as close to the ideal of repeal as is politically possible.

That means, at a minimum, taking the power to decide who gets treatment out
of the hands of prosecutors. Judges should make that call. Treatment as an
alternative to incarceration should be an option for all nonviolent drug
offenders. And Albany should ensure access to treatment by adequately
funding it.

Pataki's proposal, which has passed in the Senate, falls woefully short on
all of those counts. Prosecutors would still make the decisions on
treatment. Judges could overrule them, but only in limited circumstances
and then only for defendants who met strict conditions spelled out in the
legislation.

A compromise offered by Assembly Democrats would give judges greater
latitude to overrule prosecutors on treatment. It would extend the
treatment option to more defendants and authorize $108 million for
treatment programs, more than twice the amount Republicans would provide.

Prison is the right place for many drug offenders. Drug-law reform won't
shield them from that fate. It will simply allow judges to decide
case-by-case when the less expensive option of residential treatment is a
better way to reduce crime and protect the public. That's infinitely better
than one-size-fits-all justice, which is too often no justice at all.