Bill to up charges for alleged drug dealers fails in Assembly

A bill allowing prosecutors to charge alleged drug dealers with manslaughter if the substances sold resulted in a death passed the State Senate on Tuesday but faltered in the State Assembly yesterday.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Craig M. Johnson (D-Port Washington) in consultation with Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice and the State Association of PBAs, passed the Senate, 58-3.

"It is time to treat those who kill our children with drugs as the murderers that they are," Johnson said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "We have to stop the madness."

However, it did not get a vote in the Assembly before its adjournment yesterday.

"I support it, and I think it should pass, but there's not enough support to get it out of committee for a vote," said bill sponsor Assemb. Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach).

The law allows manslaughter charges if a person is physically involved in the fatal injection of an illicit drug. Under Johnson's proposal, anyone older than 18 who has a prior drug conviction can be charged with second-degree manslaughter if they sell the drug that leads to the death.

Senators who opposed the measure said it could deter fellow heroin users from calling for help when someone they are with overdoses.

Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-Mount Vernon), a former drug treatment counselor, said she tried to talk to Johnson about her concerns. "There was a kind of unreasonableness that, 'no, we need to put them in jail,' " she said.

Heroin has infiltrated towns all across Long Island. Jeffrey Reynolds, director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, said last week that one person a day on Long Island dies of a drug overdose.