NEWSBYRUSSELL SIMMONS & GABRIEL SAYEGH

[Editor's note: The post below by Russell Simmons and Gabriel Sayegh outlines the movement in New York to overturn the state's failed mandatory minimum drug laws. Simmons's fight against the Rockefeller laws is the subject of a documentary, Lockdown USA, that came out last week on DVD. I will review the film in a post tomorrow. ]

After nearly four decades, it looks like the Rockefeller Drug Laws may finally be on their way out. The New York State Assembly recently passed legislation-A.6085-to significantly reform the failed laws.  Now it is up to all of us to make sure that this bill gets to the Governor's desk without being weakened, so he can sign it into law.  It is the time to put to bed the Rockefeller Drug Laws once and for all.

The Rockefeller Drug Laws passed in 1973, mandate harsh mandatory minimum prison terms for simple, low-level drug offenses. Under these laws, people convicted of first or second time low-level drug offenses receive long prison terms-not the treatment or support services they often need. New York spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year locking up people for drug possession, yet spending on community-based drug treatment is pitifully low, and treatment options for people with drug problems are too limited. Incarceration costs $45,000 per year per person; community-based treatment and alternative programming, often $15K or less.

Today, there are approximately 12,000 people in New York prisons under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, more than 90 percent of who are Black and Latino. There is no excuse for this disparity - whites and people of color use and sell illegal drugs at approximately equal rates.

Why are so many people in prison for drug offenses? Because we continue to treat drug addiction as a criminal issue instead of the public health problem that it is. Nationwide, over 500,000 people are incarcerated on drug offenses, more than any other industrialized nation.