Unintended Consequences: NY Laws Providing Get Out of Jail Cards for Drug Dealers?

New drug laws in the state of New York are backfiring on officials. According to a report in the New York Post, drug dealers without a drug addiction are lining up for treatment and prosecutors cannot stop them.

The state enacted the new laws in response to the devastation of its communities as a result of drug addiction, which can often lead to violent crimes by drug lords and their gangs. The latest reform was an effort to improve consequences for drug addicts. The problem is, the new law has no independent verification of addiction by trained professionals.

Without validation, defendants with multiple convictions can exploit the provisions of the law by seeking treatment for an addiction they don’t have and emerge from the treatment center with a clean slate of up to three prior convictions as well as pending charges – not exactly what the state had in mind.

Drug dealers are well aware of the benefits offered to them through this program. They also know how easy treatment can be for someone who doesn’t really have an addiction. In a recent phone conversation intercepted by law enforcement, dealers referred to the new law as the “Drug Dealers Protection Law.”

Over the past 20 years, there has been a sharp drop in crime due in large part to innovative law enforcement and increased jail time for pushers and purveyors of violent crime. The threat of long jail time was enough incentive for both dealers and users to provide information on suppliers higher up in an organization and on other cases.

Without incentive to cooperate with law enforcement, information sources will dry up and the drug kingpins and their associates will be free to operate openly. Putting the handcuffs on the prosecutors and giving free reign to dealers is the wrong direction for drug control.