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The Rockefeller Drug Laws

By CARDINAL JOHN J. O'CONNOR

They put me beside him at lunch which itself surprised me, since I certainly had no claim to fame. But Governor Rockefeller was filled with pleasantness and treated me as a "somebody." As a matter of fact, he seemed so sincerely taken by my invocation that he asked me for a copy, and, I am told, ever after kept it on his desk.

I am reminded of that meeting as I reflect upon the Rockefeller drug laws which the governor hoped would help stem the increase in drug pushing and illegal drug use. Addressing these laws is difficult. Everything that has to do with these laws seems to be either so complicated or so irrelevant to daily life that the majority of people seem to pay little or no attention.

For quite a while now, intensely concerned people have asked me to raise the question of the injustices of the Rockefeller drug laws. I do so with sincere concern, because I truly believe that a great number of people are being caught up in a web of laws and regulations that at least on the surface seem to result in things which do not always make a lot of sense to this amateur. On the contrary, I get a sense that a great number of these laws were written as reactions to the anger and fear experienced in a day when nobody knew what to do about the serious rash of drug abuses sweeping the population. As happens frequently, then, severe and often highly justifiable punishments become acceptable practice; the problem, however, is that serious offenders and much lesser offenders can find themselves treated with equal gravity.

It seems to this observer that those who look at the laws and penalties introduced long ago get so confused or caught up in so many distinctions that they tend to give up on the whole business. But ignorance never excuses injustice, nor does fear. Most of us, I suspect, are very much afraid of "softness" on drugs. This is not, I think, merely our concern for our image. We truly fear the abuse of mind-altering drugs and their ultimate destructiveness to society. So we often have absolutely no sympathy with a drug abuser or drug pusher. Indeed, for some there is little or no distinction between the quantity of drug used, how or why its use occurred, whether sold to others or used alone, a one-time slip or long-term habit, etc. It is understandably much easier to treat all drug abuse or possession pretty much the same and even to make every misuse practically a capital offense.

As far as I am able to discern from my reading and from listening to knowledgeable and concerned individuals, the Rockefeller drug laws need a major overhaul. Perhaps it might be the worst time in the world to suggest this with the country entering into an election period. Understandably, just about the last thing any candidate would want to be accused of would be "softness" on drugs. Who can't understand that?

It would seem to me, however, that justice deferred is justice denied. Is it possible that candidates of all parties could simply say, "This is not going to affect your image adversely, if you simply call for a re-evaluation of laws that were written a long time ago and have in far too many cases proven gravely destructive to individuals without distinction of political affiliation"?

I write about the Rockefeller drug laws suspecting that what I say will be read with as much enthusiasm in some quarters as though I were writing about an esoteric species of snails. With all the crucial problems in the world, many readers may wonder why I decided to write about something the overwhelming majority of people in the United States may never even have heard of and certainly feel no overwhelming interest in. I admit such charges, but the more I think about these drug laws, the guiltier I feel. For months I have been preparing to write about them, and for months I have convinced myself that so many other things required treatment, that I can hardly afford to use this column for something that most people may not be interested in.

So I have made my decision. I have decided that this current column is only to introduce the subject and to begin to raise awareness. I am going to ask a number of individuals who have been studying the issues and know a lot more about them than I do to help me sort this out. In due time, then, but not in unduly delayed time, I will try to present a column which I believe to be critically needed because I think it will expose grave injustices and may even help restore a number of individuals to a normal way of life. If we believe what we purport to believe, that every human person is sacred, the minimum I can do is to try to help peel away the murky coverings which seemed to have, at best, so complicated the Rockefeller drug laws that justice seems to be made murky, at worst, denied, and the sense of the sacred at best muted.

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