Pubdate: Tue, 21 May 2002
Source: Times Union (Albany, NY)
Copyright: 2002 Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation
Contact:  http://www.timesunion.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/452
Author: Terry O'Neill

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
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom