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NY Times Editorial: Federal sentencing bill on crack vs. powder cocaine faces up hill battle

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Editorial: Bad Science and Bad Policy NY Times Published: March 2, 2010 The federal law that mandates harsher prison terms for people arrested with crack cocaine than for those caught with cocaine powder is scientifically and morally indefensible. Bills to end the disparity are pending in both the House and Senate. Democrats who worry about being pegged as ?soft on crime? will have to find their backbones and push the legislation through. Congress passed the law during the crack hysteria of the 1980s when it was widely and wrongly believed that crack ? cocaine cooked in baking soda ? was more addictive and led to more drug violence than the chemically identical powdered form. These myths were soon disproved. But by then, Congress had locked the courts into a policy under which minority drug addicts arrested with small amounts of crack were being sent to prison for far longer terms than white drug users caught with a satchel full of powder...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on March 04, 2010 (boomark / email).