Action Center

The enactment of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 created what is known as the 100 to 1 crack to powder cocaine disparity. This legislation was hastily passed in response to basketball star Len Bias who died suddenly after trying cocaine. From the beginning, misinformation has been associated with this issue. Bias actually did not die from using crack, but from using powder cocaine. Pharmacologically, there is no difference between crack and powder cocaine - just in the way it is administered. And though there was a scare of a crack epidemic, that never actually materialized. Yet, the harmful affects of this legislation continue withoput having been addressed.

Current federal sentencing law punishes crack cocaine offenders much more severely than any other drug offenders. Crack cocaine is the only drug for which simple possession and trafficking can lead to the same sentence. Simply possessing or dealing 5 grams of crack cocaine results in the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as trafficking 500 grams of powder cocaine. This targets mainly users and does nothing to address the harmful trafficking in large amounts of cocaine that pour into the United States every day.

Further, the enforcement of this law has been racist and devastating. African-Americans constitute more than 80% of the people sentenced under these harsh federal laws and serve substantially more time in prison for drug offenses than whites, yet whites use this form of cocaine more than African-Americans do.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, created in 1984, to help Congress reduce unwarranted sentencing, has repeatedly called for the equalization of crack and powder sentences. The resistance to change the law is based on the lack of political resolve by Congress. The result of these long sentences has been a ballooning of the prison population and the transformation of drug addicts who begin these long sentences, into criminals when they complete them.