Rockefeller Drug Laws

The New York Assembly passed a Rockefeller drug law reform bill last week. Now, the Senate has decided to submerge Rockefeller reform within a broader budget package in a bid to avoid having to take individual votes on it. Meanwhile, as if supporters needed any more ammunition for reform, another damning report is out this week.

More than 35 years after their passage, New York's Rockefeller drug laws appear to be on their last legs. But it's not a done deal yet, and the battle over what the final reform package will look like continues in Albany.

With a budget crisis and a change in New York leadership, a politically perfect storm for reform of the state's draconian drug laws seems to be brewing. With the Rockefeller drug laws finally be repealed, after 35 years?

As governors and legislators ponder deflated budgets at statehouses around the country, opportunities are emerging to move forward on long-stalled prison, sentencing, and drug reform issues.

Veronica Flournoy, 39, wanted to get her family back together and change the drug laws after her release from prison in New York state. Instead, lung cancer killed her.

We say good-bye this week to two women victims of the drug war, Veronica Flournoy, who went from drug war prisoner to reformer, and Crystal Ferguson, whose arrest for testing positive for cocaine at childbirth led eventually to a victory at the Supreme Court

New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws turned 34 this week, and the reform movement is doing all it can to see that they don't make it to 35.

A bill that would significantly expand the so far modest reforms of New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws has passed the state Assembly.

Mid-level Rockefeller drug law prisoners arrested before January 2005 will not be able to seek retroactive sentence cuts, New York's highest court has ruled.