[a fool in paradise]

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

[A CA Guy]

She feels she won a major victory for her constituents.

[a fool in paradise]

Queen Sheila PING.

In summary, I I I, race card, I I I.

I omitted the photo. Hopefully she didn’t trample some poor soul who got between her and a camera.

[stylin19a]

game,set,match.

[rhombus]

I’m surprised they didn’t reduce the cost of powdered cocaine so poor folk could afford the good stuff. ;-)

[a fool in paradise]

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

How many federal prosecutions are there for crack vs. local prosecutions?

[LukeL]

What has done more to harm society, crack, or powder cocaine?

[circlecity]

"crack and powder cocaine, substances that are chemically indistinguishable,"

Well, the ethanol in pure grain alcohol is indistinguishable from the ethanol in near-beer but there is a major difference between the two. If you don't believe it let someone who has drank a quart of near beer drive you then let someone drive you who has drank a quart of Everclear. If you survive the latter you'll understand the point I'm making.

[KarlInOhio]

The reason for the higher penalties in the first place was because blacks were screaming that crack was a scourge destroying their neighborhoods, as opposed to powdered cocaine which was seen as a little upper and upper-middle class nose candy.

[onyx]

God Almighty, the stupid bitch misses the whole point.

Crack kills. It’s sold to the young and poor by the young and poor.

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

Medical crack cocaine?

[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.

[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?

[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!)

[AngelesCrestHighway]

[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.

[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!.)