This Monday, May 5th "Lockdown USA," makes its debut on the Independent Film Channel (IFC). The film chronicles hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons's at times Quixotic quest to repeal New York's infamous Rockefeller Drug Laws, which can condemn first-time, nonviolent drug law violators to prison for 15-years-to-life. The film also stars...

In early March, a federally-funded narcotics task force struggling to increase its fiscal support carried out a crime sweep in 41 states. The sweep resulted in 4,200 arrests, with police seizing large amounts of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine. Why a massive raid? Was it the aim of the task force...

Does former President Bill Clinton want to become a drug policy reform advocate? On its face, it would seem that way following President Clinton's keynote speech at the University of Pennsylvania last week commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Kerner Commission report that addressed the causes of racial disturbances in...

New York Governor Elliot Spitzer's approval rating is at an all-time low of 36%, according to a recent survey conducted by the Siena College Research Institute. This is a far cry from his 69% approval rating when he took office. The survey polled about one thousand voters in...

What does the war on drugs have to do with baseball? Just ask Barry Bonds who was just indicted by federal prosecutors on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. Bonds is now facing up to 30 years in prison if convicted. Anti-doping advocates are calling for jail time for...

Does the number 1 equal 100? In common math it does not, but when you are talking federal drug sentencing it unfortunately does. If you distribute just five grams of crack, it carries a minimum five-year federal prison sentence. If you distribute 500 grams of powder cocaine, it carries the...

Robert Chambers served 15 years in prison for the notorious murder of Jennifer Levin in 1986. He claimed that he accidentally strangled Levin during rough sex. Despite his horrific crime, Chambers was allowed to plead guilty to first degree manslaughter and was sentenced to 5 to 15 years. Now,...

The U.S. government recently praised the arrest of Colombia's top drug lord Diego Montoya when he was captured earlier last month. Law enforcement and military officials say it was a powerful blow to Colombia's most powerful drug cartel, comparing it to the capture of Al Capone during Prohibition. Montoya, who...

The bizarre hi-jinks coming out of the upper echelons of New York State politics continues to get stranger and stranger each day. First there was Troopergate, a story broken by NY Post Editor Fredric Dicker

This involved Governor Eliot Spitzer's office accusing New York State Senator Joseph Bruno of...

I am an American. I used to be a proud one. This was before a realization that hit me hard concerning the casualties of a dirty war. I am not talking about the war in Iraq. I am talking about the other war -- the war on drugs. Every day,...

OK, so you're rich and famous and have a drug problem. You relapse and get arrested. What do you do?

It seems the latest trend in countering your likely conviction is not hiring a "dream team" of legal defenders but immediately enrolling in a rehab drug program.

Lindsay Lohan, the...

Statistically, it is well known that if you wind up in prison and are lucky enough to get out, you will be going back some time soon. Julio Medina is someone who has beaten the odds hands down. It was a long way from prison and his past life as...

Paris Hilton is free. Hooray! Sometimes it takes a traumatic experience to awaken the hidden self. The 23 days she spent at the Century Regional Detention Facility was far short of doing "hard time."

But it did give her a taste of life in the gulag. In that short time,...

On June 25th student free speech joined the panoply of endangered fundamental rights ready to be stripped away from us due to the tragedy of the drug war. Kenneth Starr, former solicitor general, who reached broad fame by highlighting a presidential sex scandal in the Clinton years, was ecstatic to...

On June 21, 2007 the New York State legislative session is expected to end without any reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws. To most people it will not mean much. But to Veronica Flournoy it will.

Veronica spent eight years in prison for a first-time, nonviolent crime under New York's...

May 8 marks the 34th anniversary of New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws. Despite a few recent reforms, which in theory would fix the draconian nature of these laws, little has been done and the campaign for meaningful reform continues. In fact, out of the current 13,000 Rockefeller prisoners, fewer...

Former Governor George Pataki's legacy of not freeing rehabilitated violent offenders is alive and well in New York State. Today thousands of parole petitioners are ready to return to society as productive citizens but remain stuck in prison because of the politics of incarceration.

This unwritten policy persists...