DOCSLIB.ORG

New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws The Fortune Society UNJUST AND COUNTERPRODUCTIVE New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws © 2004 Physicians for Human Rights and The Fortune Society All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 1-879707-44-6 Design: Glenn Ruga/Visual Communications CONTENTS Acknowledgments .......................................................................v I. Executive Summary ...........................................................1 Purpose of the Study ...................................................................1 Background.................................................................................2 Cycling In and Out: LY's Story ...................................................4 Methods of Investigation ............................................................6 Findings ......................................................................................7 Key Recommendations..............................................................11 II. Introduction.....................................................................13 Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York.....................................13 "Fifteen Years to Life" The Case of Anthony Papa..................21 Parole................................................................................21 The Social and Economic Effects of the Rockefeller Drug Laws ..22 One Woman's Story: DS ......................................................28 III. Findings...........................................................................31 IV. Life Before Prison ...........................................................39 Childhood experiences ........................................................40 Adult Life before Prison.......................................................45 V. Prison Experiences...........................................................49 Arrest and Conviction .........................................................50 Prison Environment ............................................................52 Drug Treatment, Educational and Vocational Programs in Prison .57 Prison Experience and Impact on Health ...............................60 Prison and the Family..........................................................63 VI. Re-entry...........................................................................65 Living Conditions upon Re-entry..........................................66 Attitudes and Expectations toward Rehabilitation ..................67 Employment.......................................................................69 iii VI. Re-entry (cont.) Reconnecting: Family and Social Networks............................70 Drug Use and Trade ............................................................72 Parole Supervision ..............................................................73 VII. Existing Alternatives........................................................75 Types of Drug Treatment .....................................................75 The Cycle of Addiction, Recidivism and the Criminal Justice System...............................................................................76 Alternatives to Incarceration ................................................78 Important Caveats to Alternatives to Incarceration .................83 VIII. The War on Drugs in the United States............................85 IX. Application of Relevant International and Domestic Laws..........................................................89 United States Law...............................................................89 International Human Rights Law .........................................91 X. Conclusion and Recommendations..................................95 Recommendations ..............................................................99 Appendix I ..............................................................................105 Appendix II .............................................................................107 Appendix III............................................................................111 iv NEW YORK’S ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS Acknowledgments This report was written by Rachel Porter, Graduate Center, City Univer- sity of New York; with contributions by Ingrid Tamm, MA, Research Associate, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR); Jennifer Lin, MHS, Senior Director of Research and Evaluation, The Fortune Society (For- tune); Douglas Ford, JD, Former Senior Research Associate, PHR; and Vincent Iacopino, MD, PhD, Director of Research, PHR. The report was edited by Ms. Tamm, JoAnne Page, JD, Executive Director, Fortune; Dr. Iacopino and Chen Reis, JD, MPH, Senior Research Associate at PHR. Research was conducted by Steven Caughman, Fortune co-interviewer; Mr. Ford; Derrick Harrington, Fortune co-interviewer; David C. Leven, JD, former Executive Director, Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York; Paul Rocklin, JD, Program Associate, PHR; Ms. Porter; Stanley Richards, Deputy Executive Director, Fortune; and Kenneth White, Fortune co- interviewer. The report was reviewed by Barbara Ayotte, Director of Communica- tions, PHR; Robert L. Cohen, MD; Ernest Drucker, PhD, Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Gina Cum- mings, Director of Constituency Outreach, PHR; Leonard S. Rubenstein, JD, Executive Director, PHR; Susannah Sirkin, MEd, Deputy Director, PHR. Thanks also to Jim Cho of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) for providing the authors with FAMM case files to PHR intern Lisa Kehe for her research assistance and Erica Perel for legal analysis. Physicians for Human Rights and The Fortune Society thank all those who participated in the study and shared their stories. We are deeply grateful to the JEHT Foundation and to the Open Society Institute for their financial support of this study. v vi NEW YORK’S ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Purpose of the Study New York’s Rockefeller drug laws were created to deter drug crimes by establishing some of the toughest mandatory minimum prison sentences in the nation. But as the findings of this study illustrate, the compulsory sen- tencing under Rockefeller drug laws has failed to reduce recidivism. Instead, the laws have resulted in individuals, the majority of whom are minorities struggling with drug use and poverty, trapped in a cycle of prison time and unsuccessful reintegration into society. Lengthy manda- tory sentences and, more commonly, the cumulative effect of multiple incarcerations for low-level drug crimes, have a devastating effect on indi- viduals, their families and their communities and are often disproportion- ate punishments to the crimes committed. The State of New York maintains tougher mandatory minimum sen- tences for some repeat felony drug offenders than for offenders convicted of rape or attempted murder. As a consequence, New York’s prisons are filled with people convicted of drug felonies. In 2003, nearly 38 percent of people sent to state prison went for drug offenses.1 Most political and media attention has focused on long sentences handed down to the most severe category of offenders. But the majority of people incarcerated for drug offenses in New York state prisons are con- victed of lower level felony offenses, as were the people interviewed for this study. Little survey work has been done to paint a full picture of the persons who are incarcerated by these laws, including their lives before prison, their experiences during and after incarceration, and the effects of imprisonment on their families and communities. Physicians for Human Rights and The Fortune Society conducted qualitative interviews with fifty men and women who served at least one year in a New York state prison for a nonviolent drug offense. 1 For trends of prison commitments between 1980 and 2003, see The Correctional Associa- tion of New York, Trends in New York State Prison Commitments, Correctional Associa- tion, February, 2004. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 Prison experiences do not provide individuals with the skills, treatment or support networks that they need to break the cycle and often even rein- force drug use and criminal activity. Seventy percent of the people inter- viewed for this report had attempted re-entry into society on parole before their most recent release and had then been either returned to prison for a new crime or for a parole violation. Everyone interviewed for this study was a drug user and nearly every- one struggled with addiction. Drug use and addiction represent a formida- ble public health problem in addition to other social, economic and political challenges. Yet drug addiction is treated first as a law enforce- ment problem in New York and in the United States as a whole. All too often, the public health and poverty implications of the drug trade are ignored or treated with inadequate resources. Physicians for Human Rights and The Fortune Society recommend that the State of New York reform the Rockefeller drug laws by granting judges discretion to depart from statutory sentencing ranges, especially in cases of nonviolent drug felony offenses where people are not involved as major players in drug crimes. The groups also recommend that the State of New York work to expand, strengthen and improve alternatives for incar- ceration, especially for people who need drug treatment. Ending the cycle involves judicial discretion not only for departing from mandatory sen- tence ranges but also the discretion to divert offenders to treatment pro- grams rather than prison. Background Enacted in 1973 under New York’s Governor
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Role of Gender and Relationship in Reforming the Rockefeller Drug Laws
    THE ROLE OF GENDER AND RELATIONSHIP IN REFORMING THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS EDA KATHARINE TINTO* In recent years, New York's drug sentencing laws-the Rockefeller Drug Laws- have come under attack due to their failure to reduce drug use despite the growing prisonpopulation. The political and academic communities now are debating how best to reform these laws. In this Note, Eda Tinto highlights the absence of a much- needed discussion regarding the sentencing of certain women drug offenders. Qualitative studies have demonstrated that an underlying context of many women's drug crimes is their involvement in an intimate relationship with a partner who uses or sells drugs. Tinto argues that these women drug offenders are often less blame- worthy than other offenders and that therefore the sentences for their crimes are often unjust. Tinto concludes that the context of an intimate relationshipshould be acknowledged in sentencing and proposes reforms of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. INTRODUCTION In 1973, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller successfully urged the passage of the most punitive drug laws in the country.1 The "Rockefeller Drug Laws" (the Laws) removed the discretion tradi- tionally afforded to judges in sentencing individual offenders and forced judges to sentence drug offenders to extremely long prison terms. 2 While the enactment of the Laws signaled the beginning of * I would like to thank Professor Anthony Thompson, my family, and my friends for their continual guidance and support for this Note and, more importantly, in life. I also would like to thank the staff of the New York University Law Review, especially Dave McTaggart, Maggie Lemos, Janet Carter, and Michael Kasdan.
    [Show full text]
  • Is It Time to Change the Rockefeller Drug Laws?
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by St. John's University School of Law Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development Volume 13 Issue 3 Volume 13, Spring 1999, Issue 3 Article 6 March 1999 Is it Time to Change the Rockefeller Drug Laws? Spiros A. Tsimbinos Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred Recommended Citation Tsimbinos, Spiros A. (1999) "Is it Time to Change the Rockefeller Drug Laws?," Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development: Vol. 13 : Iss. 3 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/jcred/vol13/iss3/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. IS IT TIME TO CHANGE THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS? SPIROS A. TSIMBINOS* I. INTRODUCTION When the current New York State Penal Law1 went into effect in 1965, the provisions dealing with drug offenses were brief and sim- ple. The penalties for these crimes were moderate sentences, in keeping with the general philosophy that non-violent crimes should be treated less severely than those involving violent conduct.2 In the late 1960's and early 1970's, however, as our cities became plagued by the scourge of drug abuse, the public clamored for an- swers to the problem. In New York State, Governor Rockefeller and the Legislature responded by enacting the toughest drug laws in the nation.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sing Sing Revolt the Incarceration Crisis and Criminal Justice Liberalism in the 1980S
    The Sing Sing Revolt The Incarceration Crisis and Criminal Justice Liberalism in the 1980s Lee Bernstein As 1983 began, New York’s prisons reached a chokepoint: in the past decade the inmate population went from 12,444 to 27,943. Mario Cuomo, who would become the nation’s most prominent liberal politician after delivering the keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, prepared to take the oath of office to become the state’s fifty-second governor.1 Corrections officials scrambled to find beds for four hundred new people each week in crumbling facilities and repurposed public buildings. This overcrowding occurred, to different degrees, throughout the system—city and county jails, juvenile facilities, and in state-run facilities variously classified minimum, medium, and maximum security. Multi- ple factors converged to create this overcrowding, including the war on drugs, the victims’ rights movement, and new “truth in sentencing” laws.2 In addition, declining tax revenues and the economic struggles of the state’s voters limited the state’s ability to fund new prison construction and to accommodate the educational, therapeutic, and social needs of its bur- geoning prison population. Access to basic needs like warm clothing, blankets, and mail became constrained. The Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) was character- ized by laughably inadequate grievance procedures, insufficiently staffed facilities, anemic responses to ongoing labor-management disputes, rifts between uniformed and civilian employees, and failure to address racist and sexist barriers to fair treatment for employees and the incarcerated population. Recent memory generated a foreboding sense of where all this would lead.
    [Show full text]
  • Rockefeller Drug Law Reform
    NEW YORK STATE SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON ALCOHOLISM & DRUG ABUSE Senator Jeffrey D. Klein, Chair Assessing the Effectiveness of Substance Abuse Treatment Under Rockefeller Drug Law Reform February 2012 Introduction On April 2, 2009, the State Legislature passed ground-breaking legislation that effectively swept away an entire era of notoriously harsh drug sentencing schemes known as the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The 2009 reform caused a major change in New York’s drug policy, shifting it away from mass incarceration and toward a public health model. The two most fundamental pieces included in the legislation were an elimination of mandatory minimum sentences, and restoration of judicial discretion to order treatment and rehabilitation as an alternative to incarceration. Two years have passed since these reforms were implemented, and the questions that need to be answered are: have they been successful? Are drug offenders truly being given the treatment they need, and is this treatment producing better outcomes than incarceration as the reforms intended? In order to determine the effectiveness of the 2009 Drug Law Reform (DLR), Senator Jeffrey Klein, Chair of the Senate Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Committee, gathered first-hand information from treatment providers across the State. In collaboration with the New York Association of Substance Abuse Providers (ASAP), an online survey was circulated to ASAP’s membership of 250+ alcoholism and drug treatment providers. The purpose of this survey was to determine whether treatment providers were seeing an increase in the number of patients referred from the criminal justice system, and if so, whether these providers have the capacity and resources to support all clients coming into their program for treatment to overcome their dependency and lead healthy and productive lives.
    [Show full text]
  • The Rockefeller Drug Laws: Unjust, Irrational, Ineffective
    The Rockefeller Drug Laws: Unjust, Irrational, Ineffective A Call for a Public Health Approach to Drug Policy 125 Broad St. New York, NY 10004 212.607.3300 www.nyclu.org CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION: NEW YORK’S JIM CROW LAWS ........3 II. THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS: UNJUST, IRRATIONAL, INEFFECTIVE ...................5 III. THE HARMS ...................................11 IV. MAPPING OF INJUSTICE .........................17 V. PARADIGM SHIFT ...............................30 VI. MOVING TOWARDS A PUBLIC HEALTH MODEL: RECOMMENDATIONS ...............................36 THE NEW YORK CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION The Rockefeller Drug Laws │ Unjust, Irrational, Ineffective 2 I. INTRODUCTION: NEW YORK’S JIM CROW LAWS here has emerged over the last decade a broad consensus among policy experts, criminal justice scholars and lawmakers that the War on Drugs, with its singular emphasis on incarceration, has failed. In 1993, on the 20th anniversary of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, New York State Corrections Commis- T 1 sioner Thomas Coughlin, III, said the state was “lock[ing] up the wrong people … for the wrong reasons.” Former Republican state senator John Dunne was a sponsor of the state’s mandatory sentencing scheme for drug offenses. He subsequently organized a coalition that has advocated for fundamental reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. In 2004 he observed, in a television spot, “the Rockefeller Drug Laws have been a well-documented failure.”2 Yet, as the 36th anniversary of these laws approaches, the state continues locking up the wrong people for the wrong reasons. This report presents and marshals the empirical evidence that demonstrates New York’s mandatory-min- imum drug sentencing scheme has failed, utterly, to accomplish its stated objectives.
    [Show full text]
  • Three Reasons to Re-Evaluate the Rockefeller Drug Laws Susan Herman
    Brooklyn Law School BrooklynWorks Faculty Scholarship 2000 Measuring Culpability by Measuring Drugs? Three Reasons to Re-evaluate the Rockefeller Drug Laws Susan Herman Follow this and additional works at: https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/faculty Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Food and Drug Law Commons, and the Other Law Commons Recommended Citation 63 Alb. L. Rev. 777 (2000) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by BrooklynWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of BrooklynWorks. MEASURING CULPABILITY BY MEASURING DRUGS? THREE REASONS TO REEVALUATE THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS Susan N. Herman* The so-called Rockefeller drug laws,1 enacted in 1973, have been New York's principal weapon in the war against drugs for the past three decades. The statutory design, like the reasoning upon which it rests, is simple and straightforward. The legislature chose to impose lengthy and frequently mandatory sentences for possession and distribution of controlled substances, on the assumption that harsh and certain punishment would deter and reduce drug abuse and related crime. 2 Under this system, drug offenses are graded according to the dangerousness and the quantity of the drug involved. 3 Dangerousness of a drug is determined by consulting * Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. B.A., Barnard College, 1968; J.D., New York University, 1974. The author would like to thank Paul Gangsei and David Yassky for their helpful comments, Chris Fowler for his excellent research assistance, Jim Peluso for his extraordinary efforts in coordinating this symposium, and Brooklyn Law School for the continuing support of its research stipend program.
    [Show full text]
  • Examining the Effect of Drug Law on the New York State Prison Industrial Complex
    Syracuse University SURFACE Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects Projects Spring 5-1-2010 The Commodification of the Modern Black Man: Examining the Effect of Drug Law on the New York State Prison Industrial Complex Alexis Kinney Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone Part of the Human Geography Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Other Geography Commons Recommended Citation Kinney, Alexis, "The Commodification of the Modern Black Man: Examining the ffE ect of Drug Law on the New York State Prison Industrial Complex" (2010). Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects. 404. https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/404 This Honors Capstone Project is brought to you for free and open access by the Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Syracuse University Honors Program Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This Capstone project examines the effect of New York State’s prison industrial complex on local economies. The prison industrial complex is a system of imprisonment that, through various methods, transforms prisoners into commodities. The complex involves endorsing legislation to create more crimes and longer sentences for those crimes, thus increasing the number, and term length, of incarcerated citizens. In New York, the creation of the Rockefeller drug laws resulted in a revitalized diligence in the war against drugs, leading to the promotion of prisoner- based upstate economies. Through engagement with United States drugs laws, historical accounts of drug use and addiction, and statistical analysis and research in regards to race, wealth, gender, and drug use this Capstone provides original maps that illustrate the racist nature of the Rockefeller drug laws, New York’s main drug law set, and the spatial organization of the prison system itself.
    [Show full text]
  • POSITION PAPER: Race and the War on Drugs
    POSITION PAPER: Race and the War on Drugs number blacks five to one and color have been a primary target WITH OUR HISTORY both groups use and sell drugs at of anti-drug policies and rhetoric. of racial injustice, the similar rates,2 African-Americans Beginning in the early 1900s, United States cannot comprise: drug warriors invoked the image and should not tolerate of black men high on drugs to laws that systematically • 35% of those arrested for pass the nation’s earliest drug target communities drug possession; laws.8 By 1930, 16 western states of color. Yet, this is • 55% of those convicted for prohibited marijuana as a way to precisely the outcome drug possession; and target the growing Mexican com- of the current War on • 74% of those imprisoned munity that had flooded the U.S. 3 9 Drugs. Even though for drug possession. job market. In 1951, the Boggs drugs remain as Act established stringent nar- This skewed enforcement cotics penalties in response to the available as ever, we of drug laws has a devastating threat of “communist opium” are continuing policies impact. One in three black men from Asia.10 In 1973, with a man- that have a devastating between the ages of 20 and 29 are date from the public to “get tough effect on African- currently either on probation, on crime,” New York enacted the American and Latino parole, or in prison. One in five Rockefeller drug laws, requiring communities. The time black men have been convicted severe prison terms for drug has come to reverse of a felony.
    [Show full text]
  • Deconstructing Carmona: the U.S. War on Drugs and Black Men As Non-Citizens
    Valparaiso University Law Review Volume 47 Number 3 Spring 2013 pp.89-129 Spring 2013 Deconstructing Carmona: The U.S. War on Drugs and Black Men as Non-Citizens Brian G. Gilmore Reginald Dwayne Betts Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/vulr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Brian G. Gilmore and Reginald Dwayne Betts, Deconstructing Carmona: The U.S. War on Drugs and Black Men as Non-Citizens , 47 Val. U. L. Rev. 89 (2013). Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/vulr/vol47/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Valparaiso University Law School at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Valparaiso University Law Review by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at [email protected]. Gilmore and Betts: Deconstructing Carmona: The U.S. War on Drugs and Black Men as N DECONSTRUCTING CARMONA: THE U.S. WAR ON DRUGS AND BLACK MEN AS NON- CITIZENS Brian G. Gilmore* Reginald Dwayne Betts** I. COLONIAL CITIZENS AND THE U.S. WAR ON DRUGS The Negritude movement poet, Aimé Césaire of Martinique, wrote in his book, Discourse on Colonialism, “A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization.”1 Césaire, at the time, was critiquing colonial rule of Europe over developing societies all over the world and had declared that Europe was “stricken” and “dying” as a civilization due to its tactics to maintain that rule.2 Europe’s problem was the working class (the workers) of these nations and the inability and unwillingness to resolve the issue.3 For purposes of our discussion below, Césaire’s analysis is relevant because of the current criminal justice system policy that has incarcerated over one million black men at the present time and over two million citizens overall.4 While some contend that these black men violated federal and state controlled substances laws and should be incarcerated, this viewpoint lacks thoughtful analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Rockefeller Drug Laws Quick Facts Updated February 2009
    Rockefeller Drug Laws Quick Facts Updated February 2009 • Enacted in 1973 under Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Drug Laws require extremely harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs. • The penalties apply without regard to the circumstances of the offense or the individual's character or background. Whether the person is convicted for the first-time, for instance, is irrelevant – the harsh sentences still apply. • Most of the people incarcerated under these laws are convicted of low-level, nonviolent offenses, and many of them have no prior criminal records. Today almost 12,000 people are locked-up for drug offenses in NY State prisons, comprising over 21% of the prison population. This costs New Yorkers over $525 million per year in criminal justice costs alone. • Of the 6,148 new prison commitments under the Rockefeller Drug Laws in 2007: 44% were in prison for possession alone, 66% had never been to prison before, and 94% were convicted of the four lowest offenses – B, C, D, and E felonies. For example, Over 1,200 people are locked up for simple possession of a ½ gram of cocaine, a Class D felony. • Over 42% of the people incarcerated for drug offenses in New York State prisons are locked up for simple drug possession alone. That’s more than 5,000 people. • It costs approximately $44,000 to incarcerate a person for one year. Treatment costs average from $1,200 for outpatient treatment to $19,000 for residential treatment per year, and treatment is proven to be more 15 times more effective at reducing crime and recidivism.
    [Show full text]
  • Mandatory Minimums, Crime, and Drug Abuse: Lessons Learned, Paths Ahead
    POLICY BRIEF Mandatory Minimums, Crime, and Drug Abuse: Lessons Learned, Paths Ahead Greg Newburn Director of State Policy, FAMM & Sal Nuzzo Vice President of Policy, The James Madison Institute n the 1970s, three states – New York, Michigan, and Florida – Iadopted mandatory minimum sentencing laws in efforts to deter drug trafficking and crime associated with the drug trade. Decades later, their experiences offer guidance to policymakers still searching for answers to the same problems. www.jamesmadison.org | 1 The Origins of Mandatory reaction. Law enforcement officials in New York City expressed skepticism, and some even opposed the bill.9 Others around the Minimum Drug Laws state rallied in support, including police officials in Syracuse and 10 In 1973, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller addressed Buffalo. In Michigan, “a good deal of support for the 1978 legisla- New York City’s rampant drug abuse and violent crime problem. tion came from the law enforcement community, including police The year prior, accidental drug overdose deaths in New York State agencies, the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, and 11 were six times what they had been in 1960,1 and Governor Rocke- judges’ associations.” Florida law enforcement groups cheered feller promised a new strategy. New York adopted “severe and the new mandatory minimum law, too, arguing that it sent “a clear mandatory penalties for narcotic drug offenses at all levels and for signal to traffickers in illegal drugs that they would pay a heavy the most serious offenses involving many other drugs.”2 Those new price if caught with large amounts of marijuana, cocaine or her- 12 sentences would become known as the “Rockefeller Drug Laws,” oin.” then the harshest drug sentencing laws in the country.
    [Show full text]
  • Opioid Overdose Timeline Infographic
    POLI CI ES I MPACTI NG A NUMBER OF POLICIES, INCLUDING AND BEYOND DRUG POLICY, HAVE IMPACTED THE T HE OVERDOSE EPIDEMIC IN THE UNITED STATES. THE EFFECTS ARE EVIDENT IN COMMUNITIES OF OPIOID COLOR. HERE'S A TIMELINE OF WHY. 1696, 1705... Laws were put in place to dehumanize African OVERDOSE Americans and sanctify their white slave owners. EPIDEMIC In 1696, South Carolina included language in the law that slaves had "barbarous, wild, savage natures." 1875 In 1705, Virginia passed a law to ensure that white people would not be criminalized for killing a slave. A San Francisco ordinance criminalized the "smoking of opium in smoking-houses or dens", mainly owned by Chinese immigrants. 1880-1920 1914 First cocaine epidemic Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was the first congressional action countering 1930 the United States drug trade, limiting 16 states banned marijuana, with the intent of the opiate production, sale, and distribution, even law being against Mexican immigrants. by physicians, imposing taxes and the police as enforcement mechanisms. 1934 National Housing Act established the Federal Housing Administration, solidifying and exacerbating redlining. 1969 President Nixon called a War on Drugs, creating first methadone program. Funding focused on 1970 treatment and on law enforcement intended to Controlled Substance Act negatively affect Black communities, creating justice Replaced over fifty pieces of drug legislation, inequities. establishing system of control for narcotics and psychotropic substances. "We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black [people], but Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and black [people] with and Control Act heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
    [Show full text]