CONGRESS TO CONSIDER COCAINE SENTENCES

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Sentencing Commission indicated Friday it will ask
Congress to change drug laws to reduce differences in punishments involving
crack cocaine and powder cocaine, a change the Justice Department believes
is unnecessary.

The sentencing commission, in a statement Friday, said it was concerned not
only about whether cocaine punishments were fair but "whether the penalties
are perceived as fair."

The commission cited figures showing that a person must possess 100 times
more powder cocaine than crack cocaine to receive a comparable sentence.

To address the situation, the Justice Department would prefer that Congress
increase sentences for powder cocaine crimes, not lower sentences for those
involving crack. Reducing crack sentences would signal "a retreat in our
nation's fight against illegal drugs," Deputy U.S. Attorney General Larry
Thompson told the sentencing commission last month.

Under U.S. law, a defendant is sentenced to at least five years for
trafficking in 500 grams of powder cocaine or five grams of crack.

The commission said its members concluded unanimously that the punishment
differences were "not appropriate," even while acknowledging that sentences
in crack cocaine cases ought to be tougher than in cases involving powder
cocaine.

"The sentencing commission chooses to bring light rather than heat to this
subject," the commission said in a statement Friday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Viet Dinh has described the 100-to-1
figures as misleading. A recent Justice study found that crack defendants
convicted of trafficking less than 25 grams of cocaine received a sentence
roughly five times longer than the same defendant in powder-cocaine cases.

"The department opposes any legislative proposal to lower the penalties for
trafficking in crack cocaine," Dinh said Friday. "The crack epidemic has
had a devastating effect on its victims, and the law needs to continue to
protect those victims in our most vulnerable communities."

The Justice Department said the sentencing commission rejected a measure
that would have automatically lessened penalties for some crack defendants,
unless Congress objected. Instead, the commission recommended that Congress
consider reducing penalties for crack cocaine, the department said.