Opinion

Dealers go free

Lawmakers and editorial writers collectively hailed last year’s rollback of the Rockefeller drug laws. But the reversal has been so sweeping that nonaddicted drug dealers are lining up for treatment under the new law — and prosecutors are powerless to stop them.

These laws were originally enacted in response to the devastation of our communities by relentless drug addiction, which often led to violent crimes by drug lords and their gangs. While there was merit to ending the law’s more draconian aspects, which mandated life sentences for some drug addicts, the latest “reforms” have made it much harder for prosecutors to get dealers off the street and into jail — where they belong.

We have no quarrel with the notion that a first-time, drug-addicted offender deserves a chance for treatment and, if successful, to have his arrest and conviction expunged. The road to recovery is difficult and “failure” is part of the treatment process — and so must be part of the judicial process. The system must provide opportunities for treatment programs to work.

But the new law has no independent verification of addiction by trained professionals — so defendants with multiple convictions can exploit its generous provisions. The diagnosis of addiction is based upon self-reporting by defendants, who have a clear interest in obtaining “judicial diversion” rather than prosecution.

The consequence is significant: Successful completion of a treatment program (which is easy for a nonaddict) can result in the dismissal of a defendant’s pending charges and the removal of up to three prior convictions from their criminal record.

Dealers who in the past were sentenced to prison — away from our neighborhoods and kids — now can claim to be addicts and so get absolved of not only jail time but of convictions, by saying their drug deals were a means to feed their habit.

Drug dealers know this. In a recent phone conversation intercepted by law enforcement, two dealers referred to the new law as the “Drug Dealers Protection Law.” Their conversation goes like this:

“You could say that you have a habit, and . . . they gotta prove that you make over $50,000 a year. And they said it’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 . . . You know what I’m going to do with it. 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 record. All is possessions, so they got to give me a program. They just gave me a free for all. You know what that means? I’m burning up the streets when I go home.”

The streets this defendant will “burn up” when he goes home are in our communities. The “beast” is a Teflon-coated defendant free to peddle poison.

Responsible experts credit the sharp drop in crime over the last 20 years in large part to innovative law enforcement and increased jail time for pushers and purveyors of violent crime. The threat of long jail sentences led many defendants, both dealers and users, to provide information on suppliers higher up in the organization and on other criminal cases including violent burglaries, robberies and homicides.

If dealers have no incentive to cooperate with law enforcement, information will dry up and the drug kingpins and their associates will operate freely. Other crimes won’t be solved. Why give information on other criminals when, if you just claim to be an addict, the worst you’ll face is a stint in rehab?

It’s especially troubling that this “reform” comes at a time of skyrocketing heroin use in our suburban counties. Handcuffing prosecutors and giving free rein to dealers isn’t the response constituents expect or deserve.

The mandatory nature of the Rockefeller drug laws was extreme in many cases, but the new law goes too far in the other direction. State lawmakers must immediately evaluate the impact of the new legislation on the ability of prosecutors to put and keep drug dealers in jail. Perhaps a reform of the reforms is in order.

Steve Levy is the Suffolk County executive. Thomas Spota is the Suffolk County district attorney.