(Queen Sheila) Jackson Lee applauds new law reducing crack cocaine penalties

Houston Chronicle ^ | August 03, 2010 | Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

[a fool in paradise]

Congress has finally reduced the... unjust sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses...

...The Fair Sentencing Act will reduce the 100-to-1 federal sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, substances that are chemically indistinguishable, to 18-to-1. The bill also eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession...

Under current law, possession of five grams or more of crack cocaine possession triggers a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison; simple possession of any quantity of most other controlled substances by a first time offender, including powder cocaine, is a misdemeanor offense punishable by a maximum of one year in prison.

...it takes 100 times more powder cocaine than crack cocaine to trigger the same mandatory minimum penalty... The problem with this 100:1 sentencing disparity is the fact that crack and powder cocaine are the same chemical substance...

Unsurprisingly, the application of these mandatory sentencing guidelines has led to substantial racial disparities. According to U.S. government statistics, 82 percent of federal crack cocaine offenders are African American and only 9 percent are white...

For over 20 years, there have been efforts to lower the difference in sentencing for crack cocaine and power cocaine.

...The playing field in the administration of justice must be color blind. While this is a step in the right direction, there is a great amount of work that remains to be done...

I, along with... advocates from the Open Society, ACLU, and the Sentencing Project have been championing the cause of sentencing parity for crack and powder cocaine offenses. The Fair Sentencing Act does not achieve parity....

More than two decades ago, based upon assumptions about crack which are now known to be false, heightened penalties for crack cocaine offenses were adopted...

My bill also attempted to rehabilitate the people who were ravaged by drugs....

[muawiyah]

You know how it is ~ the Democrats would whine that it was still unfair.

You get between a typical Democrat and his dope you could get hurt.

[HiTech RedNeck]

There was a time, the 20 years or so that the Queen speaks about, when black communities were seeing crack trafficking involved in most of the crime that stalked among them, and therefore wanted to “crack down” (groan, a pun) on crack.

They got their wish, and their new pundits, like her, have baldfacedly stated that it’s “racist.” Unless susceptibility to crack really is a genetic thang and not a cultural thang, she’s just called black people fools.

I had the impression that the GOP, at least, had chosen to crack down (groan, there’s that pun again) on pushers rather than users.

[muawiyah]

The "demand" side of the economic system CREATES the violence and death.

You simply get rid of the dopers, the demand goes away, so does the dope dealer.

[KarlInOhio]

Medical crack cocaine?

About twenty years ago a co-worker had some surgical work done on his nose. Cocaine was one of the drugs used as a local anesthetic and blood vessel constrictor to limit bleeding. He had to get a note from his doctor just in case he was hit with a urine test at work soon after the surgery.

[stephenjohnbanker]

An dats the trut!

[microgood]

If the problem was just disparity in mandatory minumum sentencing, why didn't we just raise the penalty for powdered cocaine abuse/sale?

Then every white lawyer would be in jail for too long.

[Vision]

You have to be a loon to be concerned that the laws on crack are too harsh.

[NorthStarStateConservative]

I hate to agree with Hurricane Shanniqua, but I think she’s right. You can’t have two sentences for what’s basically the same type of drug. Do we have different sentencing guidelines for the same amount of THC if it’s in weed form vs hash form?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Interesting.

[microgood]

The "demand" side of the economic system CREATES the violence and death.

Wrong. It is prohibition that creates the problem. We have historical proof (called Prohibition).

You simply get rid of the dopers, the demand goes away, so does the dope dealer.

But you cannot do that without losing your soul.

[Teacher317]

Oh, good. Now can she adjust the price difference between coal and diamonds? All just carbon, and the primary difference is the black-white color dofference. Clearly racist.

(Jewelry shopping this week!)

[a fool in paradise]

You simply get rid of the dopers, the demand goes away, so does the dope dealer.

Show people just where their cocaine comes from:

Man Swallows 85 Condoms of Cocaine to Smuggle to France (The Beaumont Enterprise ^ | 7/27/10)

It took five hours and four minutes, but a suspected drug trafficker finally surrendered the spoils: 85 condoms of cocaine he allegedly swallowed and intended to smuggle from Houston to France....

The 42-year-old citizen of the African nation of Togo gave up 2.2 pounds of his illicit cargo while sitting on a special no-flow toilet under the eyes of federal agents and doctors at a local hospital.

Certainly would give pause.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

[Teacher317]

Actually, you CAN have differing sentences for the same type or category of drug... clearly, because it's been on the books thanks to the outcry from the black community a generation ago.

What's amazing is that blaming racism and tweaking white guilt was at the root of each change in the law... and in each case, it is black behavior, and not white attitudes, that is at the heart of the matter. Few clearer examples of "danged-if-you-do-and-danged-if-you-don't" syndrome. The Dems dance on.

[HiTech RedNeck]

A lesson, apparently lost on many, from the era of alcohol prohibition was that since it was “in for a penny, in for a dollar” very few drinkers and smugglers dealt with beer. There was a little wine, and much, much moonshine and bathtub gin. These were not arm’s length transactions between capitalistically competing seller and buyer; the dealers used every means fair and foul to fuel demand and to keep their users. As a case in point, Mexican cartels today know no “honor among thieves” but are forever getting into deadly spats over “sales territory.”

Back to the theme of alcohol prohibition: once it ended, the alcoholic beverage consumption profile slid back towards the beer end of the spectrum.

[DBrow]

“why didn’t we just raise the penalty for powdered cocaine “

I think there have been proposals to do just that that went nowhere.

As for crack and powder being the same chemically, that is not true.

[Teacher317]

Note that even with the change she suggests, it’s still an 18-to-1 ratio for the sentence recommendation... using weight as the standard, which is similarly ludicrous, just like my coal and diamond example above. They’re both pure carbon, and chemically indistinguishable... but the composition, usage, and weight are VASTLY different.

[Spok]

“According to U.S. government statistics, 82 percent of federal crack cocaine offenders are African American and only 9 percent are white...”

Is she admitting that the disparity in drug convictions isn’t attributable to our allegedly racist justice system?

[Teacher317]

More than two decades ago, based upon assumptions about crack which are now known to be false, heightened penalties for crack cocaine offenses were adopted

Falsehoods propogated by the Left... a cute little detail she does not feel the need to share, no exactly which assumptions those are. (I'd wager that a large portion of the black community would agree with some of those "false" assumptions!.)

[TexasCajun]

Her head keeps getting bigger and that thing on her head just keeps getting tighter and tighter!