POWDER AND CRACK COCAINE

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about a case in
which the judge refused to impose the notoriously high sentence
required for crack cocaine, Kimbrough v. U.S. While the case doesn't
challenge the sentencing disparity directly, it calls attention to
the statute that punishes crack cocaine with sentences 100 times
greater than for powder cocaine, despite the fact that there is no
difference in the chemical makeup of the two forms of cocaine.

In addition, new sentencing guidelines will go into effect Nov. 1 for
people convicted of federal crack cocaine offenses. The U.S.
Sentencing Commission has finally corrected the inconsistency between
the federal guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences that resulted
in people sentenced to more time in prison than required by the law.

The law mandates a 10-year minimum sentence for a drug dealer with
only a candy bar-sized amount of crack. Yet, if the dealer were
selling powder cocaine he would have to have a briefcase full of
powder cocaine to receive that same 10-year sentence. The law is
clearly not just.

While the Supreme Court weighs the justice of federal sentencing
policy, our communities are struggling to halt the flood of cocaine
that is poisoning so many lives in the United States. Clearly, our
current drug policies aren't working.

We are both conservative Republicans who are convinced that this
country needs a more rational approach to apprehending and
prosecuting those who traffic in cocaine. A bipartisan group of four
senators who all served as state attorneys general -- Republican
Sens. Jeff Sessions of Alabama and John Cornyn of Texas, and
Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Ken Salazar of Colorado
- -- has introduced legislation in Congress to address the unfairness
of the current 100-1 disparity in sentences between crack and powder cocaine.

This disparity was passed in 1986 and based largely on the assertion
that crack cocaine was more dangerous than powder cocaine, that it
was instantly addictive and that it caused violent behavior. Since
then, copious scientific evidence and U.S. Sentencing Commission
analysis have shown that these assertions, which were not supported
by sound data, were exaggerated or even outright false. The disparity
has resulted in a hugely disproportionate number of black Americans
sentenced under this mandatory-minimum law. While the intent was not
to single out one racial demographic over another, the impact of
these laws amounted to discrimination.

As important as the sentencing disparity is, another important issue
is the lack of focus on the big cocaine traffickers by the federal
government. Local and state authorities have the ability to deal with
users and mid-level dealers. But they don't have the resources to
stop the large and violent networks that move mega shipments of drugs
into our borders and throughout the country.

Congress' primary motivation for passing mandatory minimum laws was a
desire to incarcerate high-level drug dealers for long periods of
time. Unfortunately, the opposite proved true. The U.S. Sentencing
Commission has reported that 73 percent of federal crack defendants
have only low-level involvement in drug activity, such as
street-level dealers, couriers or lookouts.

Federal authorities are squandering huge amounts of resources on
small cogs in the cocaine distribution network: One-third of all
federal cocaine cases involve an average of 52 grams, the weight of a
candy bar. This is a terrible misuse of the time and talent of
federal law enforcement and prosecutors. Plus, it has clogged the
federal courts with cases that can easily be handled by the states.

If we are to stop the flood of cocaine coming into the country,
federal resources should be focused on the networks that bring in
boatloads of cocaine and on the people who shoot and kill the large
and violent operators that the local and state authorities cannot
effectively combat. This would benefit taxpayers and more effectively
stop the flow of cocaine.

After almost 21 years, the 100-1 crack and powder cocaine sentencing
disparity has resulted in federal resources being misdirected on
small-time drug dealers and not on stopping the flow of drugs into
the country. It is now time for Congress to fix this law in order to
focus federal law enforcement resources on winning the war on drugs.