Four years ago, New York's then-Gov. David Paterson stood in a drug treatment center in Queens and made history. "And finally today, on this sunny day, with the stroke of a pen, we will end the regime of the Rockefeller drug laws."
New York's first black governor rolled back the mandatory minimum sentencing laws, first passed in 1973, that disproportionately locked up African-American men.
And now Holder argues that Rockefeller-style laws should be eased at the federal level as well.
"The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old. There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There's been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color," says Holder.
