Thirty six years ago, the State of New York passed into law the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which required mandatory long prison terms, up to 15 years to life, for possession or sale of small amounts of drugs.
Today, the Rockefeller Drug Laws era is finally over and the contribution of the hip-hop community can’t be denied. Finally, an agreement by the key decision makers, from Governor David Paterson to Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been consummated to dismantle the Rockefeller Drug Laws once and for all.
“Ending the Rockefeller Drug Laws is a great victory for the hip-hop community,” declared Russell Simmons. “We worked hard, turned up the volume on this issue and rejuvenated and broadened the coalition, but it was hip-hop artists like Diddy, JayZ and 50 Cent that gave this movement for change the power to wake people up and to get the politicians to do the right thing.”
It began on the thirtieth anniversary of the Rockefeller Drug Laws in 2003, when the hip-hop community joined together with the drug policy reform activists. Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), working with the Drug Policy Alliance and Randy Credico’s Mothers of the NY Disappeared, built an unprecedented national coalition. That coalition, called Countdown To Fairness and based out of the HSAN offices, drew a level of mass awareness previously unseen, to the thousands of non-violent first time drug offenders languishing unfairly in prison. On June 4, 2003, HSAN and that coalition, brought together Andrew Cuomo, Tom Golisano and other elected officials, along with hip-hop stars Jay Z, Diddy, 50 Cent, Mariah Carey, Rev Run, Damon Dash, Busta Rhymes, Erykah Badu, the D.O.C., Capone-N-Noreaga, Fat Joe, The Beastie Boys, Fabolous and M-1 from dead prez, and Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, to a rally in front of New York’s City Hall which drew over 60,000 people with the purpose of educating and mobilizing around this issue for which they were and are still passionate. Most of these artists had seen, firsthand, the devastating impact the Rockefeller Drug Laws have had on their own families and communities. In the state of New York, 94.5% of all those incarcerated under the Rockefeller Drug Laws are black and Latino. This event, which was extensively covered by the national media, made the reform of the Rockefeller Drug Laws a national issue. In July of 2003, in an unprecedented action on behalf of the hip-hop community, Russell Simmons, Dr. Benjamin Chavis and HSAN filed a complaint in the United States District Court Southern District of New York against the New York State Temporary Commission on Lobbying, seeking First Amendment protections guaranteeing freedom of speech and
protecting their right to raise public awareness about the Rockefeller Drug Laws. In 2006, filmmakers Rebecca Chaiklin and Michael Skolnik made a documentary film called Lockdown USA, set on the front lines of the dramatic campaign to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. In 2007, hip-hop star Jim Jones released a single and video of the same name to further draw attention to this issue. In 2008, hip-hop voters went to the polls in record numbers across the country and helped change the balance of power, so that issues like the Rockefeller Drug Laws could be readdressed.
One of the
