Another Smart Decision from Gov. Paterson

[cancidas]

from NY Times:

Legislation to Overhaul Rockefeller Drug Laws Moves Ahead Swiftly

By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: February 28, 2009
On a fall afternoon in 2002, the New York City police broke up a protest in front of Gov. George E. Pataki’s office in Midtown Manhattan and hauled a dozen demonstrators away.

The protesters were demanding that Mr. Pataki repeal the state’s 30-year-old drug sentencing laws, widely regarded as the nation’s most unforgiving. One of those placed in plastic handcuffs and carted off to a police station was a state senator named David A. Paterson.

Now, with Mr. Paterson in the governor’s mansion and Democrats in control of both houses of the State Legislature, an aggressive effort is under way to finally dismantle what remains of the stringent 1970s-era drug laws, which imposed stiff mandatory sentences as a way to combat the heroin epidemic then gripping New York City.

the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/ny...ef=todayspaper

[Tom_Turner]

Well, it costs quite a bit of money to lock up significant numbers of people, for significant amounts of time, for non violent drug offenses.

The "War on Drugs" is a failure in many respects... Time to re-think the entire bit.

Tom