"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"
Thomas Jefferson

Friday, April 3, 2009

Drug Law Reform Debate

This video is from last night's debate on the "Drug Dealer Protection Act" (so-called by the NY Daily News). This should have been stand alone legislation, it had no business being included in the state budget bills.

Sen. Ruben Diaz seems to be ridiculing the issue with his demonstration, holding up two glassine envelopes of what he later said was sugar, but the debate turned serious when Sen. Marty Golden, a ex-NYC cop, reminds Senators that street sales of heroin directly threaten the safety of children.

Had the packets Diaz holds up actually contained two ounces of heroin, they would have had a street value of up to $2,000, and been sufficient to provide 16 or more individual doses of the drug, according to the federal DEA.

Democrats were ramming through a sweeping drug reform plan as part of the state budget, but local law enforcement, including Sheriffs and DAs from the North Country, warn that the plan goes too far, and could lead to higher crime, not to mention the loss of correction officer jobs in the region.

Darrel Aubertine, who opposed these rollbacks in crime prevention in his years in the Assembly, voted in favor of them in the razor thin majority of the Democratic State Senate. 

(Diaz, recall, is one of the original "Gang of Four" New York City Senators who led a brief revolt that threatened Democrats' takeover of the Senate. He represents a South Bronx district that is a haven for drug dealers.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this guy Diaz as ignorant as he sounds?? If so, it's no wonder Darrel has emerged as one of their shining stars. When you scrape the bottom of the barrel, what do you have to show for it? The Senate democrat leadership.

Anonymous said...

Diaz is representative of what our state has become. He will be part of the state legislature for as long as he wants the job.

Long live donkeys.
Partisan politics is all that matters.

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