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Recovery in the News
Post-Rockefeller laws-Man finds road to recovery
Nicholas Hirshon
NY Daily News
July 7 , 2009
Three rocks of crack forever changed John Buckmon’s life.
A dealer at age 22, Buckmon was lounging by a sketchy Brooklyn apartment building in 1988 when police busted him for selling a gram of cocaine for $60 to undercover cops hours earlier.
Looking back, Buckmon, now 43, wishes he had been sent to a rehab center — like Samaritan Village in Jamaica, where he has lived since October — to conquer his addiction and learn job skills.
But that wasn’t to be under the stiff Rockefeller drug laws — enacted in 1973 to stanch a drug epidemic. The controversial, and some said draconian, laws were relaxed significantly this spring.
With the change, and a new focus on rehab programs, it’s possible that drug offenders now will have a shot at recovery — and to live well-adjusted lives in society.
But the Rockefeller laws have left their mark permanently on people who lived through them. Like Buckmon, who is the first to admit he’s no angel.
Stringent state penalties required minimum prison terms for even the pettiest of pushers like Buckmon, who had sold a scant amount of drugs.
Unaware the rules were that strict, he rejected an offer of 1½-to-3 years in prison — a sweetheart deal considering the harsh laws — because he believed he hadn’t sold enough to justify any prison time.
Buckmon soon recognized his gaffe. The district attorney upped the term to three to six years. Buckmon took the three years in lockup, learning what he called “useless trades” that never earned him a job.
Had the legislation allowed for rehab, Buckmon believes he would have set himself straight and would now be living with his fiancée, Denise, and three children, ages 6 months to 7 years, in Wyandanch, L.I.
Instead, the Rockefeller laws put him through a “revolving door,” he said, leading in and out of prison for some two decades.
“I always thought it was more of a hindrance than a help,” Buckmon said of his prison time. He then added wistfully, “I might have been anybody in life.”
Now, his crimes are so numerous that he has forgotten many.
Working with limited databases, prosecutors in Brooklyn, Queens and Suffolk County — where Buckmon recalled being nabbed — confirmed eight arrests from 1985 through 2008.
But Buckmon, who used at least 10 aliases, according to state and local records, estimated he has been arrested 100 times and logged 17 years in prison.
Born in seedy East New York, Brooklyn, in 1966, Buckmon grew up largely with his mom and grandparents while his dad served in the Air Force.
He strayed when his dad came back in the early 1970s and the clan moved to Rochdale Village. Confused by his father's belated return to his life, he said he began using marijuana as a kid and cocaine as a teen.
Buckmon said he notched his first arrest in 1979 after helping pals rob a kid's wallet in Bayside, earning one year of probation. That began a series of early-1980s misdeeds, including a burglary and an armed robbery for a few years in the slammer.
Once released, Buckmon started working for a dealer in Rochdale, eventually getting a beeper and dealing on his own.
That culminated in his 1988 arrest and three-year term. He tried to stay clean after getting out, but his rap sheet scared away potential employers.
"Once I got that arrest for drugs, that's when it started showing up on my record," he said, arguing his extended Rockefeller sentence hindered his job search.
After an arrest for cocaine and weed possession in February 2008, Buckmon jumped at an opportunity to enter rehab. He eventually came to Samaritan Village, where he must stay for 18 to 24 months under counselors' watch.
Added Buckmon, "I'm glad I'm here. I'm learning so much about myself and the things that kept me out there for so long."