Is Justice Colorblind?

DRUGS don’t discriminate, but the criminal justice system does.

In the past week, two high-flying fashionistas have hit hard times — designer Donatella Versace admitted to having a cocaine addiction and Belgian model Ingrid Parewijck was apprehended at JFK Airport with cocaine, and now has been ordered to attend rehab. Neither is facing jail time.

But if the main character in the newly released movie "Maria Full of Grace" had been caught at JFK with the pound of heroin she was carrying in her stomach, she could have been sentenced to 25 years to life. Under New York’s Rockefeller drug laws, this broke 17-year-old Colombian, lured into the heroin trade by a slick suitor, would have served the same prison time as a first-degree murderer.

I’m not saying Maria doesn’t make a mistake, I’m saying that locking her up and throwing away the key — while the wealthy sleaze-bag who hired her gets off scott-free — just doesn’t make sense.

Enacted by Nelson Rocke-feller in 1973 in an effort to look tough on crime, the Rockefeller laws were supposedly instituted to crack down on the "CEOs" of the business, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

The kingpins of New York realized that the harshest sentences in the country were being awarded according to the amount of drugs a person had on them, not the person’s role in the crime. So honchos rarely carry drugs themselves — they leave that to couriers and mules like Maria.

Are the laws racist?

No. What is racist is how they’re applied. It’s safe to say that the high-society dealers who supply people like Versace and Parewijck haven’t been sent upstate.

The majority of users and sellers of drugs are white, according to Human Rights Watch. However, 93 percent of those jailed under the drug laws are Latinos and African Americans, according to the Department of Correctional Services.

I’ve witnessed cops patrolling street corners and arresting addicts in my neighborhood, but it’s funny — they never seem to make it to the Wall Street parties where the dessert of choice is nose-candy.

The strategy is not working, and there’s an easy answer — real reform of the Rockefeller laws.

I’m not talking about letting murderers out on the streets — I’m talking about making sensible changes.

While campaigning, Governor George Pataki promised Latinos reform of these laws. But now, he and senators like Joe Bruno (who has numerous prisons in his upstate district), who have given lip-service to reform, are standing in its way.

Latinos helped elect Pataki, but what has he done for us lately? He’s hosting an "Amigos" party at the Republican National Convention, but it takes more than some chips and salsa to be a real friend.

Pataki needs to stop dancing and work harder to get the job done.

Reform the Rockefeller drug laws now!

María Pérez is the Deputy Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a member of the Real Reform 2004 coalition: www.realreform2004.org.