Legalized Racis........I Mean The Rockefeller Drug Laws

A set of laws enacted by one of the Tori Spellings of American politics, Nelson A. Rockefeller,
the Rockefeller Drug Laws have successfully taken non-violent criminals possessing moderate amounts of recreational drugs off the streets and jailed them for years.
In 1973, Rockefeller -- who sort of looks like a cleaned up version of Chicago Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray -- was in his final year as governor of New York State. Before he left, his administration enacted drug laws that were allegedly in place to help curtail drug related crime and take down drug kingpins, but somehow managed to accomplish the opposite.
At the time they were enacted, the laws made no distinction between marijuana, cocaine or heroin; selling two ounces or possessing four ounces of any of them would land one in jail for 15 years to life. Also, the law made no distinction between a first time offender and a career criminal. Pot was dropped from the equation in 1979.
In 79', the legislature also amended the law, raising the amount necessary to trigger the 15 to life penalty. But then, the mid 1980's came, and with it did the use of crack in the inner-cities. The government claimed they tried their best to curb crack use, but when PSAs from Pee-Wee Herman and Clint Eastwood didn't work, they had to take a different course of action.
In 1988 the amount of crack necessary to send one to jail for 15 plus years was reduced. If you were caught with 5 grams of crack, you would receive 5 years in prison. In order for the same penalty to be trigged with powdered cocaine, you would need 500 grams of the drug.
By 1997, the number of whites only made up 5.3% of the drug felon population while blacks and Latinos accounted for 94.2%. In 1996, blacks and Latinos made up only 23% of the states population but accounted for 85% of those indicted on felony drug charges.
Minority women were especially hit hard by these laws, as many children in inner cities were raised without mothers in the 1990's because of the Rockefeller Laws. In 1990, 61.2% of women jailed in New York State were convicted of drug offenses. Only 32.2% of men were incarcerated in the same year for on drug charges.
In 2004, the state legislature passed a small reform to the Rockefeller Laws, slightly reducing some sentencing and taking other small baby-steps in the right direction.
The real issue the state government continues to ignore is the effect that short, cost effective drug treatment has over imprisoning non-violent criminals.
A study by RAND's Drug Policy Research Center in 1997 concluded that effective drug treatment is 15 times more effective in curbing drug use than mandatory minimum sentencing. The same study showed that keeping an inmate in jail for one whole year costs $32,000 while the cost of an effective drug-free outpatient care program costs only $2,700 to $4,500 per person.
Think this doesn't effect SUNY students? Since 1989 -- ironically, the year after the necessary crack limits were lowered to jail offenders -- SUNY's annual funding from the state has dropped from $1.3 billion to $800 million. New York state now spends $1.7 billion annually on prisons, compared to the slightly less than $1 billion they spent in 1989.
Help rid our state of this outdated, costly and racist piece legislation that has ruined too many lives already.