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- The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the sale and possession of "narcotic" drugs in the New York State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the laws were adopted. Rockefeller had previously backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing as strategies, having seen drugs as a social problem rather than a criminal one, but did an about-face during a period of mounting national anxiety about drug use and crime. Rockefeller, who pushed hard for the laws, was seen by some contemporary commentators as trying to build a "tough on crime" image in anticipation of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976. The bill was signed into law on May 8, 1973. Under the Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (57 g) or more of heroin, morphine, "raw or prepared opium", cocaine, or cannabis or possessing four ounces (113 g) or more of the same substances, was a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison. The original legislation also mandated the same penalty for committing a violent crime while under the influence of the same drugs, but this provision was subsequently omitted from the bill and was not part of the legislation Rockefeller ultimately signed. The section of the laws applying to marijuana was repealed in 1977, under the Democratic Governor Hugh Carey. The adoption of the Rockefeller drug laws gave New York State the distinction of having the most severe laws of this kind in the entire United States—an approach soon imitated by the state of Michigan, which, in 1978, enacted a "650-Lifer Law", which called for life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole for the sale, manufacture, or possession of at least 650 grams (1.43 lb) of cocaine or any Schedule I or Schedule II opiate. By the 1980s, the drug laws were a major driver of incarceration in New York City, as NYPD started policing street-level drug markets much more intensively. (en)
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| rdfs:comment
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- The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the statutes dealing with the sale and possession of "narcotic" drugs in the New York State Penal Law. The laws are named after Nelson Rockefeller, who was the state's governor at the time the laws were adopted. Rockefeller had previously backed drug rehabilitation, job training and housing as strategies, having seen drugs as a social problem rather than a criminal one, but did an about-face during a period of mounting national anxiety about drug use and crime. Rockefeller, who pushed hard for the laws, was seen by some contemporary commentators as trying to build a "tough on crime" image in anticipation of a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1976. The bill was signed into law on May 8, 1973. (en)
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