RESTORING FAIRNESS, SANITY TO COCAINE DRUG WAR

What's the difference between crack cocaine and the powdered form of
the same drug? Ask people who have been convicted of selling one or
the other. Conviction for possession of only 5 grams of crack carries
a mandatory minimum five years in prison. A drug dealer would have to
be caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine to draw that same sentence.

Crack is used more often in poor, minority communities; powder
cocaine is found generally in affluent, white neighborhoods. So this
100-to-1 disparity in sentencing creates a racial disparity, too.
Tens of thousands of low-level crack dealers, most of them brown and
black, have gone to prison while more affluent, mostly white dealers
of powder cocaine have drawn light sentences.

Longtime critics of the crack and powder disparity recently attracted
a powerful new ally. Eric Sterling was the lawyer for the House
Judiciary Committee, which wrote the crack penalties into law 20
years ago. He says Congress made a mistake. Crack cocaine is not
instantly addictive, as lawmakers had been told. Users of crack are
not more prone to violence. Women addicted to crack are not more
likely to abandon their babies, nor will babies exposed to crack in
the womb inevitably suffer irreversible harm.

Sterling wants Congress not only to end the crack and powder
imbalance, but also to force the Justice Department to focus its
prosecutorial muscle on high-level dealers. In that way, the unjust
and racist impact of this unfair law would be eased.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission is set to debate crack punishment
issues this week. Legislation has been introduced in Congress as
well. Both are hopeful signs that sensible reform may be possible. It
is certainly overdue.