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Newshawk: DrugSense Weekly www.drugsense.org/current.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 27 May 2007
Source: News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN)
Copyright: 2007 The News-Sentinel
Contact: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/fortwayne/contact-us/feedback-np1/
Website: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1077
Author: Sylvia A. Smith
Note: Sylvia A. Smith has worked at The Journal Gazette since 1973 and has covered Washington since 1989. She is the only Washington-based reporter who exclusively covers northeast Indiana.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)
SENTENCING DISPARITY HURTS BLACKS
WASHINGTON -- Looking for a way to improve the responsibility-taking
among black fathers? Or to improve the economic standing and stability
of black families overall? Or for confronting these statistics: One of
every three black kids is being raised by a never-married mother; one
of 20 white children is being raised by a never-married mom.
One step to addressing this complicated problem is to rewrite a law
that forces federal judges to send people to jail for mere possession
of one type of drug, a substance more commonly used in the black
community than by whites. Crack cocaine is created by adding powder
cocaine to baking soda and water and then baking the mixture. The
result is broken into "rocks" and can be sold in very small
quantities. In the mid-1980s crack became a significant problem in
cities.
To try to get a grip on what some called the crack epidemic, Congress
set the penalty for possession of a tiny amount of crack ( "tiny" being
the size of two sugar packets, enough for 10 to 15 doses ) as an
automatic five-year prison sentence. Possession of the same amount of
powder cocaine generally gets probation; Congress has declared that
judges don't have to send a powder cocaine possessor to jail until the
amount of the drug reaches the 200-sugar-packet size, which produces
2,500 to 5,000 doses.
[Remainder snipped]
MAP posted-by: Steve Heath
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