Congress closes gap between crack and powder cocaine sentencing.

[Erose999]

Since the mid '80's, crack possession has carried a much, much harsher penalty than powder cocaine. This was largely due to the "moral panic" that surrounded crack and its image as a drug that led users to violence.

Crack is much cheaper than powder cocaine, so its use is more common among the urban poor, and urban minorities. Whereas powder cocaine is used more among affluent Whites. But cocaine is cocaine and the damage done to communities is the same. The tougher sentences attached to crack unfairly targeted minorities.

Today, congress passed legislation that closes the gap between crack and powder sentences. Although crack still carries a harsher penalty than powder, the quota for the mandatory minimum has been raised from just a few grams (what a user would need to get high) to 1 ounce (what a dealer would carry). So it seems the mandatory minimum sentence will target dealers rather than users.

http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/1e38c7a90bbb42c9bda8ea8c454a5424/Article_2010-07-28-US-Congress-Cocaine/id-f0d3a33d32aa406281d92203195bcfe8

Seems like a step in the right direction of treating drug use as more of a public health problem than as a criminal problem. This should ease the prison overcrowding situation as well.

Anyway, discuss.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. kick

[slackmaster]

2. Some day headlines like "Police Find Crack in Man's Buttocks" will just be fond memories

:nuke:

[bemildred]

3. 18:1 still is wrong.

This is the pretense of reform without the substance.

[Erose999]

6. I agree but its still better than 100:1 n/t

[SpartanDem]

7. Saving millions of dollars in prison cost

isn't substantive? Do realize you that Congress has never loosed a mandatory minimum for a drug law?

[asdjrocky]

4. Only took them what? Like 20 years.

How many lives were ruined by this bogus law?

It's about fucking time.

[sui generis]

5. there is no such thing as "public health" until there's a public option

let's dispel that concept immediately, unless we want to start sentencing people for being fat too, i.e., treating food abuse as a public health problem.

Having bellyached that though, it is a step in the right direction. It is still against the law and to charge a user the same way someone would charge a dealer is inappropriate and not "justice" for anybody.

[Freddie Stubbs]

8. Aren't most drug offenders in jail for violating state law, as opposed to federal law?