Here at the Daily News editorial page, we try to focus on matters of vital interest to readers. One such topic involved Albany's relaxation of the so-called Rockefeller drug laws.
We argued that softening the statutes as envisioned by Democrats in the Assembly and Senate, as well as by Gov. Paterson, would virtually decriminalize narcotics in New York.
So extreme were the provisions of the legislation in steering even recidivist traffickers and repeat quality-of-life offenders into treatment programs that we dubbed the bill the "Drug Dealer Protection Act."
The Legislature and governor refused to listen. But one incarcerated gentleman, who boasts a 27-page rap sheet, paid close attention. He found our editorials describing the law to be of perversely vital interest.
"They just changed the law," he said on a taped jailhouse conversation, adding that the statute was called the "Drug Dealers Protection Law."
That lawmakers might actually use such a title seemed plausible because we had detailed the many leniencies of the legislation. Among them:
Dealers would be eligible for probation after two, three and four convictions. Defendants could claim addiction with the aim of going into rehab. After rehab, dealers could seek case dismissals. Prosecutors would have to prove that big traffickers had made at least $50,000 in profit, an impossible task without accounting ledgers.
Said the happy inmate: "They can say that they have a habit, that they do sell drugs. And they got to prove that you make over 50,000 a year, and they said that's hard to prove with no financial records. ... So you know what they did, they just created the Beast. The Beast is coming home to be the juggernaut. ...
"They said even if you have three or four, no, four or five convictions, you're still eligible for a program, and you know me, I got no sales on my records. All is possessions, so they got to give me a program. ... They just gave me the free-for-all. You know what that means? I'm burnin' the streets up when I go home. ...
"Well, the Beast is being created right now."
Such is the law from the pusher's-eye view, rather than from the fantasy perspective that street dealers, car boosters, store burglars and the like are merely addicts crying out for help.
The Legislature tightened provisions that would have given a pass to $50,000-and-up kingpins. But lawmakers and Paterson held fast to empowering judges to seal as many as four convictions on a druggie's record - even when the druggie applies to be a foster parent or a teacher or a nursing home aide.
The law is a get-out-of-jail-free pass. We told them so. And now the Beast has come to bite them.
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