Drug Abuse

Footnotes

1. See The Merck Manual, 16th Ed. (1992) at 1550; also see 21 U.S.C. §802, (regarding federal criminal classification of presently designated controlled substances).

Many of the more commonly known controlled substances were not illegal or "criminalized," until passage of the Harrison Act of 1914. Marijuana was banned in 1937. Alcohol was banned in 1920, although "decriminalized," by repeal of the 18th Amendment in 1933. While present drug policy has statutory "roots" dating back 80 years, we regard contemporary drug policy, as characterized by the emphasis on "stepped-up" law enforcement efforts and enhanced penal sanctions, a more recent development dating back three decades, to the early 1970's.

2. See National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (1993), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which reports that 12% of the total U.S. population, or 24 million persons within the U.S., had used illicit drugs within the past year. 77 million persons had used illicit drugs sometime during their life. In a similar survey, conducted in 1994, it was found that 10.8% of the total population, or 22.6 million persons had used illicit drugs some time during the previous year.

Further, a U.S. General Accounting Office report, released in 1989, noted the following findings: that drug abuse in the United States persisted at very high levels throughout the 1980's; that the amount of cocaine consumed in the U.S. doubled, while the price declined about 30%; that the price of heroin declined 20%, while the average purity of heroin sold had doubled; and that marijuana, while its use declined, continued to be readily available in most areas of the country. See James Ostrowski, Thinking About Drug Legalization, Cato Institute Policy Analysis (1989) at 28. Thus, notwithstanding huge expenditures in waging the "war on drugs," (see Section IIA, infra), drug use remains widespread throughout the nation, its costs have actually decreased and potency increased. See also, Joseph B. Treaster, Hospital Data Show a Rise in Drug Abuse, New York Times, July 9, 1992, at B1, (citing lower costs and greater purity of drugs, together with more young sellers entering the drug market due to unemployment, as reasons for upsurge in drug abuse in New York City. Further reporting on New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse estimate of 200,000 heroin addicts in New York City alone.) See also Association of the Bar of the City of New York, A Wiser Course: Ending Drug Prohibition, 49 The Record, No. 5 (1994) at 544. Failures in ability of U.S. to prevent production and importation of narcotics, notwithstanding costly efforts, are also well documented. See E. Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders, (1993).

3. In aid of more meaningful and objective analysis of what has commonly been referred to as "the drug problem," care must be taken and appropriate distinctions made in using terms such as: "drug use," "substance abuse," "drug-related crime," and "drug-induced crime." Definitions of these terms having been blurred in the drug policy debate thus far, has led to a failure to properly analyze and distinguish harms caused by drug use, substance abuse, the drug-trade, and drug control policies themselves.

4. See "Public Health Consequences of Current Drug Policy," Section III, infra.

5. We acknowledge the reality, that forms of drug use and other potentially harmful behavior have, and always will be, engaged in by members of our society. Accordingly, we note that policies based on "zero tolerance" are unrealistic, unnecessarily harsh, and often counterproductive to reaching those in need of assistance.

6. Alternative models of drug policy which merit consideration include those incorporating principles of "harm reduction," which have received widespread acceptance among drug policy experts and by various governments throughout the world. "Harm reduction" strategies seek to analyze the phenomenon of substance abuse in society by identifying and isolating the actual societal harms caused by substance abuse, as well as policies employed to defeat it, and attempting to reduce those harms deriving from each. In seeking to reduce harms associated with drug use, "harm reduction" strategies include the expansion of needle exchange programs and methadone clinics, and education on safe drug use for that segment of the population who will continue to use harmful drugs. Meanwhile, such policy redirects law-enforcement efforts from attempts to eradicate all drug use, to concentration in areas where crime and public disorder continue to occur. We find this approach to be both more realistic and humane than present "zero-tolerance" based policy, with all its attendant costs, marginal results, and questionable use of available resources.

7. From 1973 to 1993 the total number of inmates held in prison and jail facilities throughout the U.S. quadrupled. Having doubled from 1973 to 1983, the years from 1983 through 1993 saw the total number of prisoners held in the U.S. double once again, from 660,800 to 1,408,685. During this period, the number of incarcerated drug offenders rose 510%. It is estimated that in 1990, when the number of individuals incarcerated in U.S. jails and prison facilities reached 1.1 million, the cost of incarcerating these individuals was approximately $20.3 billion, with an anticipated need to double prison facilities in the federal system.

In some states, such as New York, the figures are even more startling, New York having seen its inmate population almost triple during the period from 1981 through 1991. In only six years, from 1983 to 1989, the state saw the annual number of individuals imprisoned for drug offenses grow 500%. By 1990, felony drug convictions in New York represented 50% of all felony convictions handed down by its state courts, up from 11.6% in 1980. As of 1992, New York State anticipated the need for eight new prisons, at an approximate cost of $220 million to build one prison, and $22.5 million per year each to operate -- totaling near term costs of approximately $2.2 billion dollars. See Alan B. Fischler, The Incarceration of America, N.Y. Law Journal, November 6, 1992 at 2; Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling, Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, The Sentencing Project (1995); M. Mauer, Americans Behind Bars: One Year Later, The Sentencing Project (1992); State of New York, Division of Criminal Justice Services Statistics, 1980-1990; Correctional Association of New York and the New York Coalition for Criminal Justice, Imprisones Generation, (September, 1990); Charles B DeWitt, Information Sharing: A Plus for Corrections Construction, National Institute of Justice Reports, (Jan/Feb., 1991).

8. In 1991, the U.S. became the leading nation in the rate at which it incarcerates its people. For instance, by 1991, 445 of every 100,000 persons in the U.S. were imprisoned, a rate of incarceration more than 2 to 3 times that of its closest "competitors", e.g. Canada and China each at 111 per 100,000, and Japan at 42 per 100,000. See M. Mauer, Americans Behind Bars: One Year Later, The Sentencing Project (1992).

9. While some economic benefit is admittedly derived in those communities where new prisons are built and to the corrections personnel hired to staff these additional facilities, such "benefits," nevertheless, represent redirection of increasingly limited public resources, and involve the much greater costs associated with warehousing drug offenders.

10. One study noted that 62% of the children of incarcerated women live more than 100 miles from the correctional facility, and 47% lived 21-100 miles from the facility; Barbara Bloom, Incarcerated Mothers and Their Children: Maintaining Family Ties, at 60-64. Overall, 54% of children whose mothers were incarcerated never visited the prison facility; Barbara Bloom and David Steinhart, Why Punish Children? A Reappraisal of the Children of Incarcerated Mothers of American, (1993) at 20.

11. L.F. Lowenstein, Recent Investigations into Criminality, The Criminologist, (1992) at 105.

12. Jill Leslie Rosenbaum, Family Dysfunction and Female Delinquency, 35 Crime and Delinquency, (1989) at 31, 39. Rosenbaum found that 96% of women who had been committed to the youth authority as children, were later arrested as adults. 76% of those women had at least one other family member with a criminal record. 51% of the mothers of those women had felony arrest records, most of which were drug related.

13. See "Effects of Contemporary Drug Policy on the Integrity of Government," Section VII, infra.

14. See Clarence Lusane, Pipe Dream Blues: Racism & The War on Drugs, (1991); J. Schuler & A. McBride, Notes From the Front: A Dissident Law-Enforcement Perspective on Drug Prohibition, 18 HOFSTRA L. REV. 893 (1990); M. Sviridoff, et al., The Neighborhood Effects of Street-Level Drug Enforcement: An Evaluation of TNT by the Vera Institute of Justice, (August 1992); and Michael Z. Letwin, Report from the Front Line: The Bennett Plan, Street-Level Drug Enforcement in New York City and the Legalization Debate, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 795 (1990).

15. On the phenomenon of "drug mules" generally, see Correctional Association of New York, Injustice Will Be Done: Women Drug Couriers and the Rockefeller Drug Laws, (1992).

16. See J. Schuler & A. McBride, Notes From the Front: A Dissident Law-Enforcement Perspective on Drug Prohibition, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 893 (1990).

17. See Michael Z. Letwin, Wrong Way to Fight Crime, New York Times, October 6, 1990, at 23 (Op-Ed article); and Letwin, Report from the Front Line: The Bennett Plan, Street-Level Drug Enforcement in New York City and the Legalization Debate, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 795, at notes 68 and 127.

18. See also, "Effects of Contemporary Drug Policy on the Integrity of Government," Section VII, infra.

19. Treatment: Effective (But Unpopular) Weapon Against Drugs, RAND Research Review, (Spring, 1995); see also Joseph Treaster, Study Says Anti-Drug Dollars Are Best Spent on Treatment, New York Times, June 19, 1994; Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling, Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, The Sentencing Project (1995).

20. In New York, for example, a parent's substance abuse and failure to cooperate with treatment is prima facie evidence of "neglect" for the purposes of Family Court abuse and neglect proceedings; Family Court Act §1046(a)(iii).

21. For example, New York State law imposes mandatory reporting requirements on health care professionals, including medical practitioners, social workers and counselors, requiring them to report suspected child abuse and neglect to the Child Welfare Administration. Since substance abuse is deemed a type of "child neglect" (see note 20, above), this has a widespread deterrent effect on access to health care by drug users. With respect to fear of arrest and prosecution of women, see "The Impact of Current Drug Policy on Women," Section VI, infra.

22. See J. Ostrowski, Thinking About Drug Legalization,Cato Institute Policy Analysis, No. 121, May 25, 1989; Association of the Bar of the City of New York, A Wiser Course: Ending Drug Prohibition, 49 The Record, No. 5, at 523 (1994); E. Nadelmann, The Case for Legalization, The Public Interest, No. 92 (1988).

23. A 1993 Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study found that needle exchange programs are likely to reduce HIV transmission and do not increase drug use. However, its recommendations have not been followed because of, what we believe to be, an irrational adherence to a "zero tolerance" drug policy. See U.C.S.F. Institute for Health Policy Studies, The Public Health Impact of Needle Exchange Programs in the U.S. Abroad, (September, 1993).

24. L. Zimmer & J.P. Morgan, Exposing Marijuana Myths: A Review of the Scientific Evidence, The Lindesmith Center, (October 1995). Although between 60 to 70 million Americans have used marijuana, not one has died from an overdose, a contrast not just with alcohol but with aspirin; E. Nadelmann, A Rational Approach to Drug Legalization, American Journal of Ethics and Medicine, (Spring, 1991). Nadelmann also cites Drug Enforcement Administration's Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young, concluding, after extensive hearings on the medicinal value of marijuana, that "it is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man"); id. at 6. Nadelmann further reports that, in the 11 states that decriminalized marijuana during the 1970's, rates of consumption were indistinguishable from rates in those states that had not; and that, in the Netherlands, where cannabis was decriminalized in 1976, consumption among young people had actually decreased substantially. See also Robert W. Sweet, The Abolition of Prohibition -- on Drugs, that is, Mouthpiece, Journal of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Vol. 5, No. 5, (Nov/Dec, 1992), reporting on recommendations by President Nixon's commission on the drug laws and the those of the National Academy of Sciences in 1982, both of which called for an end to the criminalization of marijuana. Sweet further notes that decriminalization of marijuana would take 850,000 arrests out of the system.

It is also noteworthy, as reported in J. Ostrowski, Thinking About Drug Legalization, Cato Institute Policy Analysis, No. 121, (1989) at 5, that when marijuana was banned in 1937, no medical evidence was presented to Congress in support of such legislation.

25. Speech by Kildare Clarke, M.D., Kings Co. Medical Center, NYCLA Evening Forum, "Bursting at the Seams: Toward a Rational Allocation of Resources in the Criminal Justice System," (November 1992).

26. J. Ostrowski, The Moral and Practical Case for Drug Legalization, 18 Hofstra L. Rev. 607 (1990).

27. L. Zimmer & J.P. Morgan, supra at Note 24. Also see Note 28, infra.

28. It is well established that alcohol causes liver disease and tobacco is a carcinogen. Additionally, alcohol use and abuse, when combined with other activities, i.e., operation of a motor vehicle, has more dangerous effects than most presently illegal substances. Furthermore, alcohol abuse has been implicated in increased incidence of violent behavior, including domestic violence. While not advocating a return to "alcohol prohibition," we note that in the case of alcohol, appropriate sanctions are imposed upon harmful activities conducted while under the influence of this intoxicant, rather than punishment for its consumption per se. The comparative statistics are also quite poignant. Alcohol and tobacco have been directly implicated in approximately 100,000 and 300,000 deaths per year, respectively. See R. Sweet, The Abolition of Prohibition -- on Drugs, that is, supra, at 7, and E. Nadelmann, U.S. Drug Policy: A Bad Export, Foreign Policy, No. 70, at 92 (Spring, 1988). Meanwhile, according to the National Council on Alcoholism, only 3,562 people were known to have died in 1985 from use of all illegal drugs combined, notwithstanding 1985 having been was one of the highest for per capita drug consumption. Id.

29. Extensive research in to the potential therapeutic effects of psychedelics has been conducted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

30. See L. Grinspoon and J. Bakalar, Marihuana -- The Forbidden Medicine, (1993).

31. In studying the causes of crime, use of the term "drug related" is often unhelpful and even misleading, as it fails to distinguish between those crimes actually caused by drug use or substance abuse (i.e. "drug induced," meaning caused by the actual psychotropic experience, or mind and/or physical alterations brought on by use of illicit drugs), and those resulting from participation in the violent but lucrative drug trade under circumstances of drug prohibition, (i.e., "drug trade" or "drug prohibition" related crime).

32. A comparable distinction might be made between "alcohol-induced" crime (e.g., public disorder and accentuated violent behavior, domestic or otherwise), and "alcohol trade" or "alcohol prohibition" related crime brought on by the era of prohibition (1920 to 1933), which included assaults and homicides -- resulting from turf wars between rival bootleggers, shoot outs with law enforcement officials, transactions gone bad, etc., extortion, bribery, and sale of adulterated and poisonous liquor. This is not to state, however, that all occasions of casual drug use causes behavior which is harmful or sufficiently serious as to justify intervention by the state, either by penal or rehabilitative measures. See Robert W. Sweet and Edward A. Harris, Just and Unjust Wars: The War on the War on Drugs -- Some Moral and Constitutional Dimensions of the War on Drugs, (Book Review), Northwestern University L. Rev., Vol 87, No. 4, (Summer, 1993).

33. See Testimony of John P. Morgan, Professor of Pharmacology, City University of New York Medical School, June 1994, at jointly sponsored public hearings of the New York County Lawyers' Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. We note, parenthetically, that of the substances which have been most directly related to violent and other forms of anti-social behavior, alcohol rates most highly. This is not, however, a "controlled substance," as that term is defined by criminal statutes, nor would the Task Force recommend a return to "prohibition" of alcohol, based on the lessons learned from that failed experiment.

34. Certain nations have succeeded in decreasing such "drug prohibition-related" violence by easing restrictions on use and, to some extent, on sale of certain substances which are designated as "controlled" in the United States. This has decreased, to a degree, the black market activity and thereby, the cost and violence associated with illegal drug trade. Examples include: the Netherlands, Australia and the United Kingdom.

35. We cannot fail to note here that many involved in the drug trade, particularly in our nation's cities, are not "hardened criminals," but rather, minority youth who are understandably attracted to the possibilities of immediate economic advancement through participation in the drug trade. For despite its risks, engagement in the sale of drugs represents one of the few avenues available to such individuals in a world which appears to present limited economic opportunity.

36. Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling, Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, The Sentencing Project (1995).

37. See Marc Mauer, Young Black Men and the Criminal Justice System: A Growing National Problem, The Sentencing Project (1990).

38. Testimony of Jonathan Soroko, former Special Narcotics Assistant District Attorney, at jointly sponsored public hearings of the New York County Lawyers' Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (June, 1994).

39. As reported in the U.S. Dept. Bureau of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Bulletin, Prisoners in 1993:

"In 1992 . . . the number of new court commitments for drug offenses totaled an estimated 102,000 [up from 8,900 in 1980, ed.]. The number of persons admitted for drug offenses was nearly as large as the number admitted for property offenses (104,300) and larger than the number for violent offenses (95,300 and public-disorder offenses (29,400). An estimated 30.5% of all new court commitments in 1992 were drug offenders, up from 6.8% in 1980. . . .The increase in drug offenders admitted to prison accounted for nearly 46% of the total growth in new court commitments since 1980. . . . The growth in the number of persons arrested for drug law violations and the increase in the rate of incarceration for drug offenses account for the change in the prison offense distribution. Between 1980 and 1992, the estimated number of adult arrests for drug law violations increased by 108% from 471,200 to 980,700."

The resulting shift in the percentage of drug offenders held in U.S. prisons and jail, as compared to inmates incarcerated for other criminal offenses, is as follows: In 1983, the total drug offenders held in federal prisons represented 27.6% of the total inmate population. By 1993, this figure rose to 60.8%. During that same period, the percentage of drug offenders rose in state prisons from 7.0% to 22.5%, and in local jails from 9.3% to 23.0%. Together with the shift in the makeup of jail and prison populations, increased drug arrests and commitment of drug offenders during this period has resulted in a doubling of the total number of individuals incarcerated in the U.S., from 660,800 in 1983 to 1,408,685 in 1993. This figure quadruples the number of those incarcerated in the U.S. in 1973, just 20 years ago; M. Mauer and Tracy Huling, Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, The Sentencing Project (1995).

40. M. Mauer, Americans Behind Bars: One Year Later, The Sentencing Project (Feb, 1992). Also see Keri A. Gould, Turning Rat and Doing Time for Uncharged, Dismissed, Or Acquitted Crimes: Do the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Promote Respect for the Law?, 10 N.Y.L.S. Journal of Human Rights at 1 (1993).

41. See, e.g., experiences of Colombia, Panama and Peru; see also E. Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders, (1993).

42. The 18th Amendment, instituting alcohol prohibition, was enacted in 1920 and repealed in 1933.

43. E. Nadelmann, Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives, 245 Science 939 (September, 1989); J. Ostrowski, Thinking About Drug Legalization, Cato Institute Policy Analysis, No. 121, (1989).

44. Testimony of Loren Siegel, New York Civil Liberties Union, at jointly sponsored public hearings of the New York County Lawyers' Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (June, 1994).

45. Actually, discussions of "decriminalization" or "legalization" have always found wide currency, particularly in present times, due to the overwhelming failure, at huge cost, of a harsh law enforcement based strategy of drug control. See Anthony Lewis, End the War, New York Times, November 3, 1995, at A29; Jefferson Morely, Crack in Black and White, The Washington Post, November 19, 1995, at C1. Further, we must be mindful that drug prohibition, in its inception, began just 6 years prior to alcohol prohibition, by passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, a bill with little popular support but urged by then Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, a man of "deep prohibitionist and missionary convictions...'" J. Ostrowski, "Thinking About Drug Legalization," Cato Institute Policy Analysis, No. 121, at 3 (1989). While drug control has taken on its present character as a serious law enforcement priority during the past three decades, ironically, this same period has been one of unprecedented growth for the underworld, illegal drug industry, in drug usage, and in the expenditure of economic resources fighting a futile "war on drugs."

46. M. Mauer and Tracy Huling, Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, The Sentencing Project (October, 1995). This recent report found that although African Americans represent about 13% of the total population and 13% of those who are monthly drug users, they are 35% of those arrested for drug possession, 55% of those convicted for drug possession, and 74% of the total serving sentences of incarceration for drug possession. See also, 1 in 3 Young Black Men in Justice System, Washington Post, October 5, 1995, at 1.

47. Such operations are rarely conducted in predominantly white, middle and upper-class neighborhoods.

48. According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, 90% of those convicted in 1994 for federal crack offenses were black and 3.5% were white. For powder cocaine, 29.7% were black and 25.9% were white (the rest were Hispanic). Under current federal law, there is a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years imprisonment for possession of 5 grams of crack or 500 grams of powder cocaine. The Sentencing Commission's recent proposal to remove the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity was rejected by Congress, the Justice Department and the Clinton Administration. See L. Greenhouse article, New York Times, 10/31/95, at A18.

49. See "Effects of Contemporary Drug Policy on the Integrity of Government," Section VII, infra.

50. In the five years from 1989 to 1994, black, non-hispanic women from the ages of 20 to 29, faced the highest growth in criminal justice "control rates," (i.e., incarcerated, on parole or on probation) which increased 78% during this period. In the five year period from 1986 to 1991, black, non-hispanic women overall faced the highest growth in numbers of those incarcerated in state prisons for drug offenses, with an increase of 828% during this period. See also note 56, infra.

51. Correctional Association of New York, Injustice Will Be Done: Women Drug Couriers and the Rockefeller Drug Laws, (February 1992).

52. For federal arrestees, the potential sentence after conviction for similar crimes, under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, is 50 years-to-life.

53. 80% of women prisoners are the sole caretakers of children under age 18. L. A. Greenfield and S. M. Harper, Women in Prison, U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Special Report (1991).

54. See, for example, M. Letwin, Sentencing Angela Thompson, NYLJ 4/18/94, p.2, col.3.

55. See Barbara Bloom and David Steinhart, Why Punish Children?, supra, at 3; also see M. Mauer and Tracy Huling, Young Black Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, The Sentencing Project (1995). Regarding the general increase in the conviction and incarceration of women for drug offenses, in 1991, 1 in 3 woman in state prisons was incarcerated for a drug offense, up from 1 in 8 in 1986. From 1986 to 1991, the number of female state prisoners incarcerated for drug offenses grew from 2,370 to 12,633, for an increase of 433%. Id.

56. See "Public Health Consequences of Current Drug Policy," Section III, supra.

57. As regularly reported in Reproductive Freedom News, the newsletter published by The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, New York City.

In criminal statutes, "delivery" of narcotics, with or without pecuniary compensation, is generally treated under the more serious category of sale or distribution of such narcotics, (see, for example, New York State Penal Law §220.00(1), which defines sale of narcotics as: to "sell, exchange, give or dispose of to another or offer or agree to do the same." (Emphasis added.) Although such criminal prosecutions against women are not presently known to have been brought in New York State, they have been, and continue to be brought in various states throughout the nation, (see Reproductive Freedom News, supra).

58. As regularly reported in Reproductive Freedom News, supra.

59. See New York State Penal Law (P.L.) §220.39 (Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Third Degree), as compared with P.L. §160.15 (Robbery in the First Degree), P.L. §130.35 (Rape in the First Degree), and P.L. §120.10 (Assault in the First Degree).

60. See "Drug Policy, Drug Law Enforcement and People of Color," Section V, supra.

61. See "The Impact of Current Drug Policy on Women," Section VI, supra.

62. L. Grinspoon & J. Bakalar, The War on Drugs -- A Peace Proposal, 330 New England Journal of Medicine 357, at 357.

63. L. Grinspoon & J. Bakalar, ibid., at 357. See also Florida v. Bostick, 111 S. Ct. 2382 (1991); U.S. v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, at pp.13-14 (1989) (in his dissent, Justice Brennan enumerates cases in which the court failed to question the "chameleon-like way [in which the drug courier profile] adapt[s] to any particular set of observations."

64. See S. Wisotsky, A Society of Suspects: The War on Drugs and Civil Liberties, at 180 (1992).

65. The difficulty of establishing this negative proposition is borne out by the government's own statistics, which reveal that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) made 14,430 domestic seizures of nondrug property in 1993, resulting in a fiscal windfall of approximately $670 million; see Drugs & Crime Data Center & Clearinghouse, Fact Sheet: Drug Data Summary 2, (April, 1994).

66. For example, in New York, pursuant to Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law §715, the District Attorney can seek fines and other sanctions against owners of such properties who fail to commence eviction proceedings against tenants suspected of illegal conduct, irrespective of the ability of the District Attorney to bring or sustain criminal charges with respect to such tenants.

67. We also note, with great concern, the conduct of various governments outside our borders, both with and without direction and encouragement provided by the United States, whose own policies clearly take on world-wide significance. See, e.g., E. Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders, (1993).

68. As to the effect of federal drug sentencing laws in compromising the threshold requirement that mens rea be evident in the conduct of an individual defendant as an essential element in imposing criminal responsibility, see Jack B. Weinstein & Fred A. Bernstein, The Unwarranted Denigration of Mens Rea on Drug Sentencing, Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 7, No.3, (Nov/Dec 1994).

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