Like many other states, New Jersey adopted "drug-free school zone" laws in the 1980s in a bid to stop that iconic drug war menace, the dope peddler lurking in the schoolyard shadows trying to hook

[Courtesy of Drug Policy Alliance]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 24, 2008
Contact: Tony Newman at 646-335-5384 or Roseanne Scotti at 609-610-8243

Drug-Free Zone Reform Legislation Passed by New Jersey Assembly

Advocates Applaud Reform Effort and Say New Bill Will Reduce Racial Disparities and Save Taxpayers Money

Trenton, NJ—Yesterday, the New Jersey Assembly passed compromise legislation to reform the state’s unfair and ineffective drug-free zone law. The bill, A2762, sponsored by Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Mercer) and Assemblyman Gordon M. Johnson (D-Bergen) would give judges the discretion not to impose a mandatory minimum sentence under certain circumstances for drug-free zone offenses. The legislation is a compromise introduced to replace an earlier bill that would have reduced the size of the zones to 200 feet.

Roseanne Scotti, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey, called the bill a sensible compromise that would allow for individualized sentences and save taxpayers money. “Basically the current law calls for two different penalties for the same crime with the severity of the penalty based on geography and ultimately on race,” said Scotti. “The zones blanket our urban areas and as a result, 96 percent of those getting this additional mandatory minimum sentence are African American or Latino.”

In 2002, the New Jersey Commission to Review Criminal Sentencing issued a groundbreaking report on New Jersey’s “drug-free zone” law. The law basically mandates a three-year mandatory minimum sentence in addition to the penalty for the underlying offense when the drug offense occurs in the zones. The commission found that the zones were completely ineffective in reducing drug offences within the designated areas. In addition the commission found that the law had a severe “urban effect” that disproportionately affected minority communities.

Because there were so many schools and other public buildings covered by the law in densely populated urban areas, and because the zones overlap one another, most of the area of any densely populated city became one large drug-free zone. Therefore, almost any drug offense in such a city would get the additional mandatory term.

Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey recently released a report, “Wasting Money, Wasting Lives: Calculating the Hidden Costs of Incarceration in New Jersey.” The report found that in addition to the approximately $331 million that New Jersey spends each year to incarcerate nonviolent drug offenders, the state loses millions more in taxable income from the lost wages of those incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses. The loss of taxable income to the state continues even after release because formerly incarcerated individuals earn about 30-40 percent less than those who have never been incarcerated.

“Judges should have the discretion to craft fair and effective sentences and not waste taxpayer money,” said Scotti. “It costs more than $46,000 a year to incarcerate someone in New Jersey. If someone doesn’t deserve the additional penalty and if the additional penalty does nothing to improve public safety, mandating an additional penalty is just throwing taxpayer money down the drain. It damages the individual’s ability to earn a living and become a productive member of society and it shrinks New Jersey’s tax base. The bottom line is that New Jersey can’t afford ineffective mandatory minimum sentences.”

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As New Jersey legislators push for sentencing reforms of some mandatory minimum drug offense sentences, a new report from the Drug Policy Alliance

New Jersey Gov.

Yesterday, in a post titled "Random Drug Testing Can Save Lives," the Drug Czar once again blogged himself into a corner. The piece quotes extensively from a Kentucky newspaper article, which argues that random drug testing will save students from getting arrested:

"There was a tragedy in Scott County last week. A young man's future was ruined, and the events that took place will likely haunt him for the rest of his life.

Unless you've been on vacation, you've probably already heard that a superstar athlete on the Scott County basketball team was arrested on felony drug charges, which could result in him going to prison for as long as 10 years. [Georgetown News]

That's awful. But what does this have to do with random drug testing?

...Whether we realize it or not, the real tragedy is this young man wasn't caught sooner, through a less punitive program intended to help youthful offenders, not send them to prison. The greater tragedy, to my way of thinking, is that we, as a community and a school system, haven't seen fit to acknowledge reality and implement a random drug testing program in our high school, and perhaps our middle schools.

So what exactly did this young man do that could get him locked away for 10 years? He was arrested for 1.6 grams of crack on school grounds. Crack/powder sentencing disparity + school zone = 10 years for a one-day supply of drugs.

By conceding that this young man's life has been ruined, the Drug Czar does far more to indict our brutally unfair sentencing laws than to promote random drug testing. He is literally telling us that we should let him collect urine from our children, otherwise his drug soldiers will put them in jail for a decade.

And if that doesn't make your head spin, consider that cocaine leaves your system in 1-2 days and will rarely come up in a drug screen anyway. You can smoke crack all night on Friday and pass a drug test on Monday, so none of this whole insane conversation about saving people from crack laws with drug testing even makes sense to begin with.

For Immediate Release: October 31, 2006 For More Info: Tony Newman (646) 335-5384

The Tale of Two MA Teenagers: Probation for Coach Belichick’s son for Small Amount of Marijuana, Two Years in Jail for Mitchell Lawrence