US attorney general orders end to sentencing disparities in crack cocaine cases
The US attorney general ordered justice officials Friday to treat drug offenders equally in powder cocaine and crack cocaine cases, after decades of disparities saw African Americans jailed more often and longer than whites.
In a directive to the Department of Justice, Merrick Garland said there was no reason to apply harsher penalties for crack offences.
"The crack/powder disparity is simply not supported by science, as there are no significant pharmacological differences between the drugs" said the directive.
When crack, a cocaine derivative, swept through the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, Congress passed a law -- crafted by then-senator and now President Joe Biden -- setting harsher penalties for possession and dealing than those for powder cocaine.
The law recommended up to five years in prison for possession of 500 grams of cocaine, but only five grams of crack, justifying it by the more intense impact of crack, according to The Sentencing Project.
In addition, crack possession carried a mandatory prison sentence for the first offence involving more than five grams.
At the time crack was most common in poorer and African American communities, while powder cocaine...