MAKE U.S. DRUG LAWS MORE REALISTIC

PRESIDENT Barack Obama's request that Congress eliminate the
disparity between sentences for crack cocaine and powder cocaine
offenses would abolish a clearly discriminatory law.

In general, the Obama administration seems to be taking a more
fact-based and less ideological approach to drug enforcement, a
welcome change from decades of elected officials upping the ante on
sentencing to prove who's the toughest on crime at election time.

The result of that has been 500,000 people imprisoned in the United
States for drug crimes, more than all of more-populated Western
Europe combined for all other crimes, according to the Drug Policy
Alliance Network, a critic of U.S. policy.

A rethinking of the war on drugs (a term rejected last week by
Obama's drug czar) has been slowly occurring since the late 1990s, as
many have questioned its efficacy at reducing drug use and the human
cost of sending so many to prison.

EVEN SPRINGFIELD has been forward-thinking, with aldermen approving
an ordinance in February allowing police the discretion of whether to
charge those with less than 2.5 grams of marijuana with a crime or
simply cite them for an ordinance violation.

The change, endorsed by Springfield Police Chief Ralph Caldwell after
the department discovered it worked in similar Illinois cities,
allows officers to spare those who have a few joints from the stain
of a criminal record for a mistake that's been a rite of passage for
millions of Americans.

A change in U.S. sentencing law for crack and powder cocaine is
critical because of the racial disparity in sentencing. Many view the
current law as unfair and racist. It is. Consider:

* In 2006, 82 percent of those convicted of federal crack cocaine
crimes were black.

* The same year, 58 percent of those convicted of power cocaine
crimes were Hispanic, 27 percent were black and 14 percent were white.

* A person caught with 5,000 grams of powder cocaine will get 10
years in prison. The same sentence is triggered for those with only
50 grams of crack.

Congress set the penalties this way because it believed there was a
link between violence and crack, a link disputed by U.S. District
Judge Reggie Walton and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., at a recent
congressional hearing on the subject. Durbin voted for the laws
creating the disparity.

"We were mistaken," Walton said. "There's no greater violence in
cases before me."

"Each of the myths upon which we based the disparity has since been
dispelled or altered," Durbin said. "Crack-related violence has
decreased significantly since the 1980s, and today 94 percent of
crack cocaine cases don't involve violence at all."

Eliminating disproportionate sentences will no doubt be a tough vote
for Congress, with members who do so subjecting themselves to the
tired old charge that they are soft on crime. But it's time for some
political courage.

The nation's drug policy should weigh fairness, health, treatment and
the cost of incarceration with the need for punishment. Obama's
policies are moving the nation in that direction.