A Mother Speaks Out On the Rockefeller Drug Laws

In 2003, Cheri O'Donoghue's son was arrested under the Rockefeller drug laws. Since then, she has fought for his release and an end to the Rockefeller drug laws. Listen to Rockefeller reform advocate and parent Cheri O'Donoghue tell her story and explain how you can get involved.

May 8th marks the 34th anniversary of New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws. Hip-Hop Megastar Jim Jones has just released Lockdown, USA, a powerful song calling for real reform of the draconian Rockefeller drug laws and an end to the war on drugs. The song and video are now available on the website of the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org). Go to the website, watch the video and listen to the song - learn about Rockefeller's impact on New York State and the war on drug's impact on this nation.
Since 1973, the Rockefeller drug laws have required extremely harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs. Most of the people incarcerated under these laws are convicted of low-level, nonviolent offenses, and many of them have no prior criminal records. These New York State laws are emblematic of America's longest running war, a war that affects the whole nation. That war is the war on drugs. Earmarked by mandatory minimum sentences, extreme racial disparities in drug incarceration versus drug usage, and a lack of affordable drug treatment opportunities -- this war has only been successful in destroying countless lives families, and communities. Despite a few recent reforms, which have not addressed 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 than 300 have been freed under the revisions to date.

Please visit www.drugpolicy.org to take action, watch Jim Jones' latest video, and join the Real Reform Coalition.

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[teletoneboner]

SHIT!.... is that right? 7 to 21 years?? for a little coke?.. jeez ,you can kill someone in the UK and not get that long!... surely thats undeniably, just plain, wrong.

[quietstorm609]

ronald regan is the real kingpin.

[rodoeman88]

in the UK you would probably get a community order or a suspended sentence. If the Judge is particularly harsh, you would probably get a short 3-12 month custodial sentence. This is of course if you admit your guilt at the earliest possible stage and co-operate with all investigations. Furthermore, this would have to be your first offence of this kind.

Seven years is just plain ridiculous. The US justice system systematically degrades and humiliates people. They show no regard for Human Rights

[relliknomlas]

@spimdlh A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004, blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Clinton

[relliknomlas]

@spimdlh In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King's leaving Memphis, Tenn., after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd (W.Va.), a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited.

[relliknomlas]

@spimdlh The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s. Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act. In 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King's protest against the Vietnam War, Lyndon B Johnson referred to Dr. King as "that Nigger preacher!!

[relliknomlas]

@spimdlh Republicans were the ones that founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks.

[relliknomlas]

@spimdlh It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Eisenhower was the one to end segregation in the military. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon's 1969 Philadelphia Plan

[relliknomlas]

@spimdlh It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 . During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors .

[relliknomlas]

@spimdlh Martin Luther King was a Republican !! From its founding Republican party was known as the anti-slavery party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the Grand Old Party Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican president. He successfully led the country through its greatest constitutional, military and moral crisis—the American Civil War—by preserving the Union by force while ending slavery and promoting economic modernization .

[spimdlh]

@AmericanPowerBase martin luther king was not a republican! He must be turning over in his grave! Stop watching Glenn Beck!

[teletoneboner]

@AmericanPowerBase You Sir, are what we over here call an ignorant twat. And, more to the point your country and society is completely fucked up.... How can you be proud of injustice? I say again... TWAT