David Soares is a political fraud ostensibly promising drug law reform while expanding the costly war on drugs in a different direction. He was elected to the office of the Albany County District Attorney running on a platform seeking to repeal New York’s draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws. Many progressive anti-prohibition organizations fell in love with his rhetoric. To Soare’s credit, his campaign was influential in the passage of minor Rockefeller drug law reforms although critics have charged that the changes do not represent real reform.
Prosecutor David Soares continues to strongly criticize the U.S. war on drugs as an abysmal failure. His 2006 speech at the International Harm Reduction Association conference in Vancouver, where he warned Canada to stay as far away from U.S. drug policy as possible, earned him praise from drug law reformers.
Yet at the same time Soares was criticizing the failure of the “war on drugs”, he was aggressively invigorating the nation’s “war on steroids“; he abandoned his efforts to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws in favor of a costly steroid witch hunt. The inescapable hypocrisy of David Soares’ actions suggest a political opportunist who lacks a principled stance on drug law reform (“Soares, Steroids and Albany,” March 2, 2007).
Lawyers, cops and others are saying that sales across state lines automatically make this a federal crime. Why did David try to supercede the DEA?
The Florida defense attorney said in a video clip that the suspects were aware of the investigation and offered several times to turn themselves in. David rejected their offer because he wanted to fly down to Florida “…with a camera crew.” Now we are stuck not only with the cost of David’s trip but also with the transportation costs of bringing the suspects up to Albany. In addition to two assistants, David invited a Times Union reporter and photographer on these out of state raids. This doesn’t look good and it appears that David is playing for publicity.
David Soares spoke at length about his criticisms of the war on drugs and the Rockefeller drug laws to Colorlines magazine (“He Fought the Law… And He Won: David Soare’s Election,” March 22, 2005); I have included excerpts from his interview below where he sure does “talk the talk.”
Soares believes public safety is best served when the wasted money used in the war on drugs is reallocated to harm reduction and education efforts (except in the war on steroids).
Public safety is something that concerns everyone; it doesn’t matter what your color. I think when you talk about real safety, when you talk about opportunities for non-violent offenders, when you are talking about a better way of using resources available to us, putting more money into education instead of locking up 17,000 people to the tune of $5 million a year, what’s not sensible about that?
Soares believes in treatment over incarceration for drug users (except for anabolic steroid users).
Addiction is something that affects everyone, whether it is crack cocaine or alcohol. Most people, whether it be immediate family or a cousin, have that experience; they know what damage addiction does to families. So to have a system that treats addiction in the way that it does, so disproportionately, is wrong.
Soares believes in the elimination of a system where two standards of justice exist – one for poor, disadvantaged individuals and one for affluent people (except for affluent steroid users).
Because the Rockefeller Drug Laws smack of everything that is offensive, especially when you are talking about the criminal justice system… We know that [the drug law] acts negatively on African Americans and Hispanics so disproportionately that the fact that it is still on the books today makes you wonder…
Rockefeller was an important issue because it wasn’t just about drug law reform; it was about two systems of justice. It was about disproportionate effect on the economically challenged. It was about sensible reform in terms of where we are putting our money.
But in actual practice he has perpetuated the two standards of justice; only in his version of it, the affluent and advantaged drug (steroid) users are disproportionately targeted!
David Soares’ office appears to have worked tirelessly sorting through the subpenoaed records of thousands of steroid users to find the names of affluent and successful professional athletes and entertainers who may have used steroids. This information is conveniently leaked to the press, most notably Soares’ bedfellow, Brendan Lyons of the Albany Times-Union (“Stop leaks of names linked to alleged steroid use,” November 8, 2007).
“The Albany County District Attorney’s office has willfully become the handmaiden to Major League Baseball, the National Football League and the media at large,” the motion says. “They have taken great pains to bypass the sealing order imposed by Judge Kest over Signature Pharmacy records, many of which are duplicates of patient records maintained at the centers, in order to make highly publicized disclosures of confidential patient records linking patients to both (PBRC) and Signature Pharmacy.”
David Soares has succeeded in “convicting” wealthy and affluent steroid users in the court of public opinion (and tarnishing their careers and reputations) through the “leaking” of patient records and the process of naming of unindicted co-conspirators.
If you are poor and a drug user, David Soares says he is on your side.
But if you are affluent and happen to use steroids, David Soares wants to destroy you.
So much for Soares’ single standard of justice.
Drug law reformers need to get over their abusive love affair with David Soares and recognize him for what he is – a phony!
About the author
Millard writes about anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs and their use and impact in sport and society. He discusses the medical and non-medical uses of anabolic-androgenic steroids while advocating a harm reduction approach to steroid education.
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