Pubdate: Thu, 29 Nov 2007
Source: Hudson Valley Press, The (NY)
Copyright: 2007 The Hudson Valley Press
Contact:  http://www.hvpress.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4638
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

CRACK VS POWDER COCAINE BATTLE

The NAACP is pleased that incremental steps are being implemented to 
correct one of the most egregious disparities in the nation's drug 
enforcement policies.

For more than 20 years mandatory sentencing guidelines and 
differences in crack and powder cocaine penalties in America's courts 
have disproportionately impacted African American and other minority 
defendants.

But now, due to actions taken by the U.S. Sentencing Commission 
(USSC) last May that took effect Nov. 1, the mandatory minimum 
penalties for crack cocaine conviction have been lowered, which may 
impact as many as 3,500 federal defendants a year.

"The NAACP has long supported a reduction in crack cocaine penalties 
and a repeal of mandatory minimum sentences for such offenses," said 
NAACP Interim President & CEO Dennis Courtland Hayes. "On average, 
this change will reduce the penalty on defendants' sentences by 15 
months. While this change is not all that we have been advocating 
for, it is an important first step."

The result of a 1986 federal law has been a huge, 100 to 1 disparity 
between the penalty for possession of crack cocaine and powder 
cocaine. Specifically, a person has to possess 500 grams of powder 
cocaine before they are subject to the same mandatory prison sentence 
(5 years) as an individual convicted of possessing 5 grams of crack 
cocaine, despite the fact that the pharmacologically of the two 
illegal narcotics are identical.

Another effect of the 1986 law is that small-scale crack cocaine 
users are punished much more severely than powder cocaine users and 
their suppliers. Despite the fact that cocaine use is roughly equal 
among the different populations in the U.S., the vast majority of 
offenders tried, convicted and sentenced under federal crack cocaine 
mandatory minimum sentences are African Americans.

While the USSC decision does not impact the 100-to-1 crack / powder 
cocaine sentencing disparity, it does ensure that people convicted of 
crack cocaine possession under federal law are not sentenced even 
more harshly. The USSC in now in the process of determining if their 
action should be retroactive, a move the NAACP fully supports.

"Making the provision retroactive would help approximately 19,500 
people currently in prison for a federal crack cocaine conviction, 
approximately 86 percent of whom are African American," NAACP 
Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton said in testimony before 
the commission earlier this week. "It only makes sense that a person 
sentenced between Oct. 1, 1991 and June 30, 2007 should not have to 
spend more time in prison than those sentenced after November 1, 
2007, simply because they had the misfortune of being sentenced at 
the wrong time."

Failure to apply the sentencing measure retroactively-which was done 
in the past for LSD, marijuana and oxycodone that benefited other 
racial groups more so than African Americans - would further 
perpetuate and perhaps intensify the injustice around this issue, 
Shelton added.
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