CLEAN UP THE DRUG LAWS

WASHINGTON -- When I was a federal prosecutor in New York, I led a 13-month
investigation of a vast cocaine distribution organization. The kingpin of
the organization was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.

A 21-year-old woman who played a subordinate and short-term role. The judge
sentenced her to probation. It was a compassionate sentence and the proper
one.

But under the terms of an amendment recently passed by the Senate this woman
would have received a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The Senate's action was framed as an effort to shrink the disparity between
sentences for crack and powder cocaine. At present, a defendant convicted of
dealing at least five grams of crack cocaine in the federal system receives
a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. In the case of powder cocaine,
the five-year mandatory minimum does not apply unless the defendant has
engaged in drug dealing involving amounts of at least 500 grams.

The appropriate solution, one urged by many participants in the criminal
justice system, is to reduce the disparity by raising the weight standard
for crack cocaine rather than lowering it for powder cocaine. Unfortunately,
this solution runs counter to the iron law of drug politics, which holds
that it is politically foolhardy to oppose tougher sentences for drug
defendants.

Since the late 1980s, sentences available to prosecutors in narcotics cases
- -- and mandatory within comparatively narrow ranges for sentencing judges --
have become dramatically more severe. Some time ago we reached the point of
diminishing returns. Although it takes courage for politicians to say in
this context that we have gone too far -- or at least that we should go no
farther -- we plainly have reached that point.

The way to mitigate the unfairness of the crack-sentencing standards is not
to toughen the powder-cocaine sentencing rules; it is to take the more
courageous step of ameliorating the crack-sentencing scheme. When Congress
reconvenes at the beginning of next year, it should reject the
powder-cocaine measure that the Senate passed this month.