Modbert
Daydream Believer
- Sep 2, 2008
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Bill Eases Penalty For Crack Cocaine Possession : NPR
The fact it's still 18-1 is ridiculous, but at least it's not 100-1 anymore.
Thoughts?
After more than a decade of debates, hearings and lobbying, the Senate has passed a bill to change the punishment for possession of crack cocaine.
The bill had strong support from both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. While the current law punishes crack users 100 times more heavily than powder cocaine users, the new Senate bill brings the 100-to-1 ratio down to 18-to-1.
In an interview, Cynthia Orr, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense lawyers, described how the 100-to-1 ratio plays out in real life.
"The penalty for possession of a saccharin package worth of crack cocaine is a five-year mandatory minimum. And it goes up from there astronomically to where you're at a life sentence before you can bat an eye with crack cocaine," she said, "Whereas you have to have 5 kilos of powder cocaine, so it's literally 100 times more severe penalty for the same amount of drug."
Congress enacted these rules in the early 1990s, when crack was ravaging urban communities. In those days, Reggie Walton worked on drug policy in the first Bush administration. Back then he supported the sentencing disparity, but now he is a federal judge in Washington and feels differently.
"We believed it was a different chemical substance. We now know that's not the case," Walton said. "The reality is that crack cocaine and powder cocaine are the same chemical substance."
Walton has testified on this issue before Congress on behalf of the Judicial Conference. He says the sentencing disparity has had a huge impact on people of color.
"You have a large percentage of people who are Latino or African-American being locked up for crack cocaine convictions," he said.
The Right Balance
That's partly because crack is much cheaper than powder. Walton says he believes there will still be objections to the Senate bill from people who think crack and powder should be treated the same.
Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys' Association, says he thinks the bill strikes the right balance.
The fact it's still 18-1 is ridiculous, but at least it's not 100-1 anymore.
Thoughts?