Lock 'Em Up

Drug usage and the violence it in spires are mounting across the nation, but nowhere is the problem more grave than in New York City, with its esti mated 360,000 addicts. The volatility of the drug-crime syndrome also makes good political fodder.

Governor Nelson Rockefeller was aware of all that--and deeply frustrated as well by the state's continued failure to conquer the problem. Thus last week, he stepped before the state legislature and called for a drastic drug program.

The Governor's diamond-hard line: mandatory life sentences for all hard-drug pushers and hard-drug users who commit violent crimes while under the influence. The sentences would preclude any possibility of parole or plea bargaining (although those in their upper teens would become eligible for parole after 15 years).

There is plenty of support in New York and elsewhere for the sternest possible drug-control measures. Said Dr.

Beny Primm, executive director of Addiction Research and Treatment Corp. in Brooklyn's drug-ravaged Bedford-Stuyvesant area: "I'm not a civil libertarian any more when it comes to the destruction of lives. I hate to sound so conservative, but this is from five years in the field. I see it every day. People say, 'Lock the pushers up, even if they're my son or daughter.' "

But criticism of the speech came from various sides, including the New York Civil Liberties Union and proponents of New York's six-year-old, billion-dollar methadone program (TIME, June 14, 1971), who feel that Rockefeller has not given their scheme a sufficient chance. There were some sober appraisals of the Governor's proposals. Did he really mean to include hashish in the hard-drug category? Where was he going to get all the jails? Said Gordon Chase, New York City health services administrator: "He makes no distinction between kids and big-time pushers. What about the 16-year-old who sells an ounce? He's a kid, he makes a mistake. Are you going to slap him in jail for 15 years?"

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