Mandatory minimum crack law

A federal law rectified some, though not all, of the sentencing disparities. For more information on federal laws on cocaine possession, see Cocaine Possession. Unlike the U. For more information on cocaine possession laws by state, see Drug Possession Laws.

Crack cocaine is made by dissolving powder cocaine a derivative of coca leaves and baking soda in boiling water and then cutting the resulting paste into small "rocks" after it dries. The rocks are usually sold in single doses to users who smoke them. Because of the inexpensive additive baking soda , a rock of crack cocaine is cheaper than a similar "dose" of powder cocaine.

But the two forms of the drug are chemically the same and affect the user in the same physical and psychological ways. A person smoking crack cocaine as compared to snorting or injecting powder cocaine experiences a faster, more intense high simply because smoke in the lungs affects the brain more quickly than the other methods of ingestion.

Crack cocaine first hit the national radar in but, contrary to media reports, it was not a new drug. Before , federal sentencing laws treated possession of crack and powder cocaine the same. That year, national news outlets began reporting inflammatory anecdotes supposedly revealing a "crack epidemic. These dire reports multiplied, despite the lack of scientific evidence to support them. Not incidentally, this media feeding frenzy happened during the second Reagan administration, which had made law and order a major element of its agenda.

In an article in , Newsweek quoted a drug expert as calling crack "the most addictive drug known to man. But before the tide turned, Congress passed a draconian law that led to the imprisonment of thousands of mostly young African-American men for many years for simple possession of crack.

With the mid-term congressional elections looming, Congress reflexively grabbed onto the growing crack epidemic hysteria and reacted by holding hearings at which unscientific and ultimately discredited claims were made about the heightened dangers of crack and its insidious spread throughout urban communities.

Food and Drug. General Notices. Health Care Fraud. Identity Theft. Impact Analysis. Intellectual Property. National Defense.

Powder Cocaine. Press Releases. Prison Issues. Public Comment. Public Hearings. Public Meetings. Quick Facts. Relevant Conduct. Reports At A Glance. Reports to the Congress. Research Reports. Role in the Offense. Rules of Practice and Procedure. Safety Valve. Sentencing Table.

Sex Offenses. Structural Reform. Supervised Release. Supreme Court. Synthetic Drugs. Testimony, Speeches, Statements. Trend Analysis. Sessions, a career prosecutor before his election to the Senate, has been a prominent defender of mandatory minimum sentences.

At the Department of Justice, he has brought into senior leadership others who share his view. Jared Kushner, son-in-law to President Donald Trump, has been meeting with Senators about sentencing reform.

The position of the Administration at the end of on the new sentencing reform legislation has not been announced. This testimony on mandatory minimums, drug treatment courts, cannabis policy, and public perception of crime was delivered remotely on October 28, This brief calling for an end to mandatory minimum sentences was presented at the United States Capitol on June 24, This petition called on the leaders of the Congressional Committees on the Judiciary to repeal the mandatory minimum laws imposed by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of Signed by Eric.

Sterling, In this piece Eric E. Sterling calls for the repeal of mandatory minimums passed in response to Bias's death. June 17, Eric E. House of Representatives on behalf of the Justice Roundtable, a coalition of national criminal justice reform organizations, calling for an end to the disparate mandatory minimum sentences assigned to crack and powder cocaine. February 16, The Greensboro, North Carolina News Record published this op-ed about the problems of mandatory minimum sentencing on the front page of its opinion section.

April 3, Sentencing is Perverse in the War on Drugs , by Eric. This op-ed condemning the unequal application of justice in the War on Drugs appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, April 30, This article in the Villanova University Law Review argues for an end to mandatory minimum sentences. January 1, Drug Policy. Crack Cocaine. Cannabis Marijuana. Medical Cannabis Marijuana. Prosecutorial Overreach.

Mandatory Minimums and Sentencing Reform. Civil Asset Forfeiture. Sentencing Guidelines. Among the amendments being considered was one to effectively reduce the length of sentences given to crack or cocaine base offenders. The amendment has some historical background. As a result, the U. Sentencing Guidelines were established setting up a 1 to ratio between crack and powder cocaine.

What this meant was that someone responsible for 10 grams of crack would receive the same sentence as someone responsible for grams 1 kilogram of powder cocaine. It quickly became obvious to everyone involved that there was a serious problem with this disparity in the treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenders, namely that crack cases primarily involve black or African-American individuals, whereas powder cocaine cases primarily involve white individuals.

From the very beginning, a clamor arose from various corners of society regarding the injustice of this disparity. Civil rights groups, sentencing advocacy groups, minority advocacy groups, and criminal defense attorney groups began to see that, across the board, black defendants with a particular quantity of crack were receiving much harsher sentences than their white counterparts sentenced for the same quantity of powder cocaine.

The result of years of such clamoring was the proposed amendment to the crack provisions of the U. On November 1, , the amendments to the guidelines were passed, with the Sentencing Commission stating that this was a first step toward eliminating the racial disparity set up by the Sentencing Guidelines. As of November 1, , defendants sentenced in crack cases began receiving the benefit of the new Sentencing Guideline provisions.

Defendants previously sentenced, however, did not. Specifically, the question for the U. After debate, public comment, and a public hearing in Washington, D. Sentencing Commission did vote in favor of making the amendment retroactively applicable, but they made a statement that the amendment did not become retroactive until March 3, All of this has several implications for those who were sentenced in federal crack cases before November 1, First, the inmate may be eligible even now, five years after it went into effect to request that his sentence be reduced.