Senate Bill Will Fix Sentencing Disparity for Crack Cocaine Possession
Feature Story by Steven Fanucchi - 7/18/2007
A bill introduced by Senator Joseph Biden, D. Del. would eliminate the unfair criminal sentencing disparity for possession of crack and powder cocaine.
The Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2007 (S.1711) will change existing law to create a uniform sentencing structure for both forms of cocaine to make the penalties for possessing crack cocaine to equal that of powder cocaine.
Current law maintains a 100:1 powder-to-crack ratio, which means that an offender receives the same five-year mandatory prison sentence for possession of either 5 grams of crack (10-50 doses) or 500 grams of powder (2,500-5,000 doses).
Pharmacologically, crack cocaine and powder cocaine are nearly identical. The result is an anti-drug law that disproportionately punishes low-level crack users, who tend to be African-American.
"The well-known 100-to-1 crack-powder ratio in federal law is one of the most visible manifestations of racial disparity in the criminal justice system" stated Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Senator Biden put it bluntly: "This 100:1 disparity is unjust, unfair, and the time has long past for it to be undone."
A number of prominent national civil rights groups support Biden's legislation. In a statement, the ACLU called Biden's bill a "long-awaited fix to discriminatory federal drug sentencing."
Biden's bill is just one of several bills in Congress aimed at dealing with the crack-powder cocaine sentencing disparity.
Senators Edward M. Kennedy, D. Mass., Diane Feinstein, D. Calif., Arlen Specter, R. Pa., and Orrin Hatch, R. Utah, have introduced the Fairness in Drug Sentencing Act of 2007, which would reduce the sentencing ratio to a 20:1 disparity instead of eliminating it.
However, moving in the opposite direction, House Representative Roscoe Bartlett, R. Md., introduced the Powder-Crack Cocaine Penalty Equalization Act of 2007. Instead of lowering the penalty for crack, this bill would raise the powder cocaine penalty to match that of crack.
The Anti-Drug Act of 1986 established the 100:1 sentencing structure to address the widespread belief that crack cocaine was a substantially more addictive and dangerous drug than powder cocaine. Modern research rejects this conclusion.
"The sentences for crack offenses need to fall to a level in line with the punishments for powder," said Rachel King, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "There is no rational medical or policy reason to punish crack more severely than powder. Cocaine is cocaine."
For over a decade, the U.S Sentencing Committee has urged Congress to eliminate the 100:1 sentencing ratio "so that federal resources are focused on major drug traffickers as intended in the original 1986 legislation." Furthermore, the committee rejected any upward movements for the penalties of powder possession.
"The bottom line is that there is no scientific justification for any disparity," said Biden. "Crack and powder are simply two forms of the same drug, and each form produces identical effects."
