Back in 1973, the Rockefeller administration in New York State enacted laws that ordered long and severe prison terms for the sale or possession of amounts of drugs that were relatively small in size.  The target of these laws was the drug kingpins but most arrested by these laws were those involved in low-level, nonviolent offenses. As a result, there were thousands of people in New York in prisons that suffered from drug abuse problems, or problems related to mental illness, being homeless, or not having a job

The New York Civil Liberties Union as well as criminal justice advocates and medical experts have endeavored to convince judges that addiction should be treated as a public health matter. These non-violent drug offenders sentenced to prison is an ineffective means of treatment and only serves to highlight racial disparities. The ones who get incarcerated are primarily blacks and Hispanics although whites are the ones who mostly use illegal drugs.

In 2009, the governor of the state of New York along with the senate and the assembly passed laws to reform the Rockefeller drug laws. This represented a great shift in policy as well as a new approach to dealing with drug offenses. Instead of locking people up and leaving them to suffer with their drug problems, this new agreement promised to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences and to enable judges to send drug offenders to rehabilitation programs instead of to jail. In addition, the sentencing was made retroactive so that more than 1,000 convicts who were in jail were allowed to apply to the court for a resentence and possible release from jail.

Despite these new reforms, there continue to be wide arrests in New York City for the possession of marijuana. Although simple possession has been decriminalized, police continue to arrest people who possess the drug in public view. The New York Civil Liberties Union criticized such practices claiming police coerced simple possession into an offense which could cause arrest.