Being Fair To Crack Dealers

The U.S. Sentencing Commission finally eased off its suggested penalties for crack cocaine after nearly 2 decades of crack dealers receiving disproportionate punishments compared to those who deal cocaine in powdered form. An example of this would be a dealer nabbed for 500 grams of powdered cocaine receiving five years in prison. However, someone caught with a hundredth of that in crack form would receive the same amount of jail time. Science has come to prove that there is little difference in the two forms of the drug. However, that did not affect the way the law dealt with them. But now, with new guidelines reducing penalties, the mandatory minimums still remain. Though the new guidelines might push Congress to reconsider the mandatory minimums, nobody wants to appear as lenient in the eyes of a dealer.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission appears to be making a bold move. Traditionally, Crack dealers received brutal punishments even though science has proved that there is no distinct difference between the two forms of cocaine. Because of this observation, it would leave anyone to question why the U.S. Sentencing Commission was so hard on crack dealers. Cutting crack punishments to equalize with powdered cocaine penalties makes sense to me. Drug dealers or not, we, as American Citizens are given the right to fair trials. Fair trials should include proper and similar penalties for two forms of the same drug that, by science, has been proved to have no real difference. The U.S. Sentencing Commission was created to “help ensure that people convicted of similar crimes end up with similar prison terms”. Knowing this leaves me in a bit of disappointment knowing that they’ve just caught on to the fact that people convicted of similar crimes are not being treated fairly. Hopefully the outcome of this issue will not result in increased trafficking of crack cocaine.