Opening for Sentencing Reform

When Congress passed federal drug sentencing laws in the mid-1980s, it established an extreme disparity between sentences for powder cocaine offenses and for crack cocaine offenses. Conviction for sales or possession of five grams of crack, far less than one ounce, means a mandatory five-year prison sentence. But to draw the same five-year term, a powder cocaine offender needs to be caught with 500 grams, or more than a pound. That’s a ratio of 1 to 100.

This huge disparity, which has long made many people uneasy, has been justified by widely held views about the difference in the criminal behavior between users of crack and powder cocaine, a difference believed to spring from the variance in pharmacological properties of the two forms of the drug. Now comes persuasive evidence that this big legal disparity offends not only fundamental notions of equal protection but also those of medical science.

The far more severe punishments for crack offenses emerged from the belief that crack is more addictive and its users therefore are more likely than powder users to commit violence to feed their addiction.

The sentencing disparity was meant to send the strongest possible deterrent message to crack users and traffickers. But crack is also much cheaper than powder cocaine and for that reason is more readily available in poorer, often minority neighborhoods. As a result, aggressive federal prosecution of crack offenders and the resulting long mandatory prison terms imposed on those convicted have raised concerns that federal agents have unfairly targeted minority neighborhoods.

With one in five federal prison cells now occupied by small-time drug offenders, often involving crack, many are asking whether the statutory disparity has produced the wisest use of expensive federal prison beds.

New findings from two psychologists specializing in drug addiction should, finally, give Congress enough political cover to address this injustice. Research by Dorothy K. Hatsukami and Marian W. Fischman, published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., concludes that neither form of cocaine is significantly more addictive than the other.

Hatsukami and Fischman’s findings are based on analysis of laboratory experiments and other published research on cocaine over the past 20 years. Their findings argue strongly for an end to the wide discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine sentences.

Unfortunately, Congress and the Clinton administration seem disinclined to listen. Thoughtful efforts last year to reduce the disparity died amid fears in the White House and on Capitol Hill about looking soft on crime. With the election over, it’s time for another try at reform in the national federal drug sentencing policy.