Pubdate: Sun, 04 Aug 2002
Source: Daily Gazette (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The Gazette Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.dailygazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/105
Author: Terry O'Neill

DON'T ABANDON ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS

Former state Sen. John Dunne continuously reminds us that although he 
sponsored the legislation that wrote the first chapter of New York's canon 
of tough drug laws, he considers the experiment to have been a total 
failure. Having seen in those years the repeated rise and fall of history's 
most powerful drug mafias, the damage they have done and the cost of taking 
them down, he knew what he was talking about.

Has there been a total failure? I think not.

The drug problem is, in fact, unprecedented in human history. Our 
Anglo-American philosophy of criminal justice has always been based on the 
concept of individual criminal responsibility. How was it, without some 
kind of adaptation, to address what is, in effect, a rampaging epidemic 
that manifested itself in crime and socially destructive behavior? We could 
have done much worse.

Treading carefully and responsibly in the direction of reforming our drug 
laws, Gov. Pataki has set the right pace. It will take time and it won't 
make everybody happy now. But it's the right thing to do.

To the people who disagree with him, I'd offer the bit of Vulcan wisdom 
that Mr. Spock left behind when he laid down his life to save the USS 
Enterprise and its crew in "The Wrath of Khan": "Sometimes, the needs of 
the many outweigh the needs of the few."

TERRY O'NEILL

Albany
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