With less than two weeks left before the Legislature ends its regular session, the clock is running down on reforming New York’s Draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws. Now is the time for state leaders, including the Governor, Majority Leader and Assembly Speaker, to make a final push to repeal these laws that have led to the unnecessary imprisonment of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders and ruined countless lives for the past 30 years.

Under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, first-time offenders face 15 years to life for selling or possessing small amounts of drugs. These laws, enacted in 1973, have been an unqualified failure, leading to an explosion in the state’s prison population, and profoundly impacting a whole generation of young urban men and women. Records show that 94 percent of offenders incarcerated under these laws are either Black or Latinos.

For far too long, this debate has been in the public’s view without any concrete reform measures being put in place. We cannot allow for this culture of “incarceration before treatment” to continue. In fact, there has not been a single study that shows that the Rockefeller Drug Laws have reduced drug consumption or associated violence in New York.

What we do know is that more than 19, 000 men and women who otherwise may have had the opportunity to contribute to their community and live productive lives, were needlessly locked away in our prison system for possessing or selling small amounts of drugs. Many of these New Yorkers were first time offenders.

In the years since the Rockefeller Drug Laws were imposed, we have learned that court supervised, community-based drug treatment programs are the way to successfully deal with low-level, nonviolent drug offenders. These programs have wide public support and are considered the most cost-effective and successful tool to combat street level drug crimes. Voters have made their views clear in opinion surveys similar to the New York Times poll of last October, which showed that 79 percent favored changing the law, with 83 percent saying that drug rehabilitation should be an option. Yet, there has been no “real reform” of these laws. The problem with repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws begins in deciding exactly whose competing version is real reform. The Governor first released his reform plan nearly a year ago and the Senate has passed a similar version. Unfortunately, the Senate’s plan offers only limited relief for some felony offenders and would actually result in longer prison sentences for others. That is hardly reform.

Further, the Senate plan has limited retro activity, which means only about 2.5 percent of the drug offender population now in prison would be eligible. Equally important, the Senate bill offers no drug treatment component. Indeed, not a single drug offender would be diverted into a treatment program under the Senate’s bill.

The Assembly bill, however, offers the best hope to truly repeal the harshest aspects of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, while imposing tough sentences for mid-level and violent drug dealers. A key aspect of the plan would allow judges more leeway in sentencing nonviolent drug offenders to mandatory drug treatment programs and imposing appropriate sentences that fit the facts of each case. The Senate Majority and Governor have thus far opposed judicial discretion.

In short, the Assembly bill represents a true reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and would give hope to thousands of men and women unjustly imprisoned in New York. It is my hope that the movement that has sprung up from the streets of our city where tens of thousands of New Yorkers have questioned the racial bias of these laws, and the high-profile activists and entertainers who have recently lent their name to this cause, will add to the pressure for a political solution to this problem.