Quote:
Originally posted by Optimist Prime
The only reason its illegal is because of racism.
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No kidding. I was shocked at the disparity in the sentencing laws for crack cocaine and powder cocaine, when I did a paper two years ago.
"Congress responded by passing the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988. The acts created the Office of National Drug Control Policy....The law required a mandatory minimum 10-year sentence without parole for those dealing 5,000 grams or more of powder cocaine (about 10 pounds). Those dealing 500 grams or more (about one pound) receive a mandatory 5-year minimum....Congress also set a similar two-tiered structure for crack sentences. But Congress believed crack cocaine to be more addictive, more linked to violent crime, and more likely to be dealt in small quantities than powder cocaine. It therefore set the minimum amounts of crack drastically lower than powder cocaine. A person dealing 50 grams (about two ounces) of crack receives the same 10-year-minimum sentence as a person with 5,000 grams of powder cocaine. A person with 5 grams (about two-tenths of an ounce) of crack gets the same 5-year-minimum sentence as a person with 500 grams of powder cocaine. In other words, Congress set a 100:1 ratio between powder and crack cocaine. (Most state drug laws also set a ratio between the two drugs, but none as large as 100:1.)"
"The study concluded that blacks are arrested for drug crimes way out of proportion to black drug use. Blacks accounted for about 13% of drug users, yet they also accounted for 35% of all arrests for drug possession, 55% of all convictions on those charges, and 74% of all drug possessors sentenced to prison. From 1986 to 1991, the number of black drug offenders in prison jumped nearly twice as fast as rates for any other group, with the number of black men imprisoned for drug offenses increasing 429%....The impact of severe mandatory minimum sentences for first time non-violent drug offenders and the contrast between crack and powder cocaine sentencing has aggravated the racial imbalance in drug enforcement even further. For example, federal sentencing guidelines impose a five year minimum sentence if one is convicted of selling five grams of crack, yet the sale of an equal amount of powder cocaine yields only a one year sentence. Crack defendants tend to be black, while powder cocaine defendants tend to be white. Simple possession of more than five grams of crack is a felony with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for a first offender, while possession of the same amount of powder cocaine is a misdemeanor requiring no jail time."
http://www.crfc.org/dmclessondrug.html http://www.212.net/crime/justice.htm
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