PATAKI TAKING RIGHT ROAD ON DRUG REFORM

Way back in 1962, in the case of Robinson vs. California, the United States
Supreme Court considered a California statute that permitted the
imprisonment of a person for the offense of being a drug addict. Noting
that it is entirely possible to become an addict through no fault of one's
own -- such as by being born addicted -- the court tossed that one out.

How things changed over the years -- especially our perspective. Granted,
we have gone through two periods of true emergency -- the initial public
alarm over heroin in the early 1970s and the crack epidemic of the late
1980s -- but for the most part, we have increasingly come to the consensus
that America's drug problem is largely driven by chronic drug abusers who
should be treated, not imprisoned. As Americans, we have great faith in
medical science. We should actually be surprised that we are not already
further along the road to finding addiction's cure.

The drug problem has instead led America's system of justice into strange
territory and New York, with our 1973 Rockefeller drug laws, blazed that
trail for the nation. It is gratifying to see Gov. George Pataki doggedly
moving in a new direction by putting increasingly well-thought-out options
for reform on the table.

When our Albany County District Attorney, Paul Clyne, dismisses the
governor's latest reform proposal as an invitation to "every garden variety
drug dealer" to claim to be an addict (Times Union, 10 May) in order to be
diverted into treatment, I'm afraid, to paraphrase Robert Frost, he's
continuing headlong down that road we should not have taken.

Terry O'Neill

Albany