TARGETING RACIST DRUG SENTENCING

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 debating crack punishment issues.
Legislation has been introduced in Congress as well. Both are hopeful
signs that sensible reform may be possible. It is certainly overdue.