CRACK IS WACK; COCAINE, LAME. PARITY, PLEASE

It is nearly impossible to have a rational discussion about reforming
drug policy in this country. To question the logic of our current set
of punitive laws is to question the morality of the War on Drugs itself.

Don't hold your breath waiting for anything that resembles a
comprehensive rethinking of our antiquated and racially biased drug
laws. A status quo steeped in brutality, arbitrariness and moral
obtuseness beats laws grounded in justice every time.

When something sane unexpectedly happens, as it did this week when the
Senate voted to reduce the disparity in sentencing for crack and
powdered cocaine possession, there's a temptation to believe grown-ups
have finally slipped into the room.

Reality comes crashing back in once you scope the fine print, though.
Here's the situation:

Once upon a time in the mid-1980s, the Congress in its infinite wisdom
decided to deal with the crack and cocaine epidemic by applying a
sledgehammer where a scalpel was needed.

With the streets of many of America's cities suddenly overrun with a
cheaper, more accessible form of cocaine, the politicians panicked.

The lawmakers assumed that crack was more dangerous than the more
genteel powdered cocaine that family, friends and loved ones
occasionally indulged on the weekends. It wasn't addictive.

By their lights, crack wasn't anything like that white powder Woody
Allen blew away with an ill-timed sneeze in "Annie Hall."

Where crack was dangerous, cocaine was glamorous. Crack exacerbated
crime and urban pathology. Cocaine made a person feel clever while
dancing at Studio 54 all night. Crack opened the door to never ending
misery. Cocaine was a white person's burden -- temporary at best.

Both were illegal, but one might as well have been baby powder judging
by the disparity in sentencing for possession of crack versus cocaine.

Though unconscionable on its face, the laws dictated that someone
convicted of crack possession got the same prison time as someone with
100 times the same amount of powdered cocaine. This is color-coated
justice, pure and simple.

In other words, five grams of crack guarantees a five-year mandatory
minimum when you stand before a judge. You have to get caught with 500
grams of powder cocaine to get the same sentence.

That's a 100-to-one ratio that disproportionately affects
African-Americans who were early adopters of the much cheaper form of
cocaine known as crack. Other than the way they are consumed, there is
no material difference between the two, so what accounts for the
difference in treatment?

Crack and cocaine users receive separate and unequal sentences so
blatant that it would embarrass an old Jim Crow judge. The legislation
passed in the Senate this week reduces the disparity, but doesn't
completely eliminate it.

If the Senate has its way, the ratio will no longer be 100-to-one --
it will be 18-to-one. You would have to get caught with 28 grams of
crack to trigger the five-year mandatory minimum sentence.

Don't get out your party hats yet, you crack heads. Things are looking
up if a law reflecting one-fifth the previous discriminatory status
quo is considered progress, but that's a pretty pathetic standard.

The House is wrestling with eliminating the disparity completely. A
law implementing one-to-one sentencing for crack and powder cocaine
possession would be the beginning of justice, not the end.

What we really need is something far more radical than the adjustment
of laws that incarcerate a disproportionate number of black folks.

Frankly, we should be talking about decriminalizing drug possession
and drug use and treating it for what it is -- a public health problem.

Mexico and other countries are slipping into anarchy because of our
nation's insatiable demand for illicit drugs. Why not take the profit
out of international and domestic narcotics trafficking and strike a
blow against the economic viability of drug cartels? Other nations
would quickly follow our example.

Instead of taxing soda pop, why not tax the product a sad minority of
Americans never seem to get enough of?