Rockefeller Drug Laws

[1] Rockefeller, who pushed hard for the laws, was seen by some contemporary commentators as trying to build a "tough on crime" image in anticipation of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976.

In that year, the Joint Legislative Committee on Narcotic Study commenced and would remain intact through the passage of the famous (or infamous, depending on one's point of view) Rockefeller Drug Laws in 1973.

.We found that this small group of drug users accounts for approximately 60 percent of our probation and parole violations.

[4]Furthermore, another, state-level committee was formed in 1967 with the intent on studying crime and corruption in general, with a particular nod to study "all phases of narcotics within the State, with the object in view of formulating and recommending remedial legislation as it may deem necessary to control the illegal use of narcotics and to provide for the care and treatment of addicts.

Particularly, the committee showed inextricable connections between narcotics and organized crime and presented it as a problem devastating New York City.

"[5] Most significant in connections to the punitiveness of the future Rockefeller Drug Laws, the committee expressed acute concern with the uptick in teenagers becoming addicted to heroin, and staggering death rates resulting from its use.

The laws were enacted at a time of mounting anxiety regarding drug addiction and crime, and arguments from some politicians that a draconian approach was needed.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared in a White House briefing speech:[6] America's public enemy No.

William F. Buckley, one of the most conservative public figures in America, was staunchly against it, as well as many in law enforcement, who saw inherent unfairness in placing the non-violent crime of drug trafficking on a par with murder.

Economist Murray Rothbard called the laws "draconian: long jail sentences for heroin pushers and addicts.

The Rockefeller program, which proved finally to be a fiasco, was the epitome of the belief in treating a social or medical problem with jail and the billy club.

"[9] The laws also drew intense opposition from civil rights advocates, who claimed that they were racist, as they were applied inordinately to African-Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latinos.

738 (effective January 13, 2005)), which replaced the indeterminate sentencing scheme of the Rockefeller Drug Laws with a determinate system.