“I walked right into a police sting operation,” Papa, 49, said. As it turned out, the Yonkers dealer was actually a police informant who had set him up.
   Despite being a first-time, nonviolent offender, Papa was sentenced to 15 years to life because of New York’s Rockefeller Drug Laws, considered by many to be the most stringent in the country. He spent more than a decade in Sing SingCorrrectional Facility in Ossining, NY. until 1997, when former Gov. George Pataki granted him clemency.
   Papa is one of thousands of nonviolent offenders — both sellers and drug addicts — who are serving lengthy prison sentences because of the laws. Last week, the stinger was removed from the statutes, as a reform of the laws took effect and over a thousand nonviolent drug offenders serving time in prison scrambled to apply for reduced sentencing.
   Passed in 1973 under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, the laws addressed a burgeoning drug problem and urban blight in the city, which was intensified by the onset of a fiscal crisis. Under the statutes, the penalty for selling two or more ounces of cocaine, heroin, morphine or cannabis or possessing four or more ounces of the same drugs was a minimum of 15 years and maximum of 25 years in prison — same as that of second-degree murder.
   The 2009 reform legislation eliminates mandatory prison sentences for most drug offenses, giving the judge discretion over whether to sentence someone to prison, probation or a treatement program. It also allows retroactive sentencing for approximately 1,500 incarcerated people who are currently serving a maximum term of more than three years.
   Many reformers agree the greatest change to take place is the shift from a criminal justice approach to dealing with drug addicts to a treatment approach.
   Papa says he survived the “living nightmare” of prison by discovering his talent for art and earning three degrees while incarcerated. He has even authored a book called “15 to Life,” which was just commissioned for a movie. But his story isn’t typical, he says, admitting prison doesn’t offer an ideal setting where an offender can clean up his act.
   “Treatment was a joke in prison and it wasn’t readily available,” he said. “If you didn’t go in with a habit, you left with one.”
   But the path to overhauling the laws has not been an effortless one. While Gov. David Paterson and groups such as the Drug Policy Alliance have been advocating for reform for many years, some view the changes as dangerous.
   Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Astoria) has long decried the passage of drug reforms, having said the harsh minimum sentencing applied only to A-1 felons who have to sell or possess over $100,000 worth of drugs. He worries that the time and resources it takes to re-sentence inmates will take away from the court’s ability to prosecute new drug offenders — while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Simply put, he said the changes gives pushers a “get out of jail free card.”
   “As soon as the Democrats took control of the Senate, this was the most important thing on the agenda — freeing criminals,” Vallone said.
   Acknowledging the city’s fiscal crisis and dwindling police force, he added: “It’s the absolute worst time to do something like this.”