Salon has a long feature news article today on the Rockefeller drug laws by Michelle Goldberg. See, Noelle Bush gets rehab, the poor and black get hard time.

"There are roughly 21,000 people now serving drug sentences in New York state prisons, constituting about a third of the state's inmate population. Though studies show that most drug users and drug sellers are white, 94 percent of New York's drug inmates are black and Latino."

"Fed up with draconian drug penalties, a coalition led by angry mothers is threatening to overturn some of the country's harshest laws."

The Group is Mothers for the Disappeared. They are making progress, but need more support and have a ways to go, thanks to the opposition from the District Attorneys' Association.

The DA's admit they oppose reform because "the threat of long sentences helps them extract plea bargains and recruit informants. "

The Drug Policy Alliance fears that if the laws aren't changed this November, they won't change at all.

And back to Noelle Bush, "Noelle Bush forges a prescription and goes to rehab," says Teresa Aviles, a 54-year-old Bronx police clerk whose son, Isidro, died of an untreated, undiagnosed illness after serving eight years of a 27-year federal prison term. "If that was my daughter, she would have gotten a mandatory five-year sentence."

Check out the site and help these folks convince the NY legislature to do the right thing.