Op-Ed: Seeking to Close the Books on a Bad Law

[MountainLaurel]

For Arthur Burnett, a senior D.C. Superior Court judge, few drug cases have tested his judicial temperament like those involving crack cocaine. What infuriates Burnett most is not the users but the law itself: a five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for possessing five grams of crack cocaine -- about as much as two packets of sugar.

No other drug law metes out so much punishment for such a small offense, Burnett points out.

No other drug law makes such a peculiar distinction between different forms of the same drug: If a person has powdered cocaine, it takes 100 grams to get five years -- even though crack is nothing more than a heated mixture of powdered cocaine and baking soda.

Worse yet, with blacks comprising 80 percent of those charged and convicted of crack-related offenses, the law is widely perceived as being unjustly applied.

snip

In a report to Congress last week, the U.S. Sentencing Commission recommended reducing sentences for low-level cocaine offenders and repealing the mandatory minimum penalty for simple possession of crack cocaine. Even Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), long a proponent of stiff federal drug laws, has become concerned by the enormous disparity and recently introduced legislation that would reduce crack sentences while raising powder penalties.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201502.html

[Asgaya Dihi]

1. Article got the numbers wrong

This is a debate I've had recently, the disparity is actually higher than the article suggests. Yes, it takes 5 grams of rock to get five years, but it takes 500 grams of powder rather than the 100 stated for the same mandatory five years.

The following article was linked through stopthedrugwar.org and offers some basic facts about this and a couple of other problems on a national level early in the document, later it goes into a few specific States.

http://www.famm.org/Repository/Files/PrimerFinal.pdf