Crack Cocaine: Mandatory Minimum Sentences Rule turns 20

27.Oct.2006 at 2:01 pm | hso

Crack Cocaine: Mandatory Minimum Sentences Rule turns 20

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cocaine I heard this in the news today, if a person is caught with “crack�? cocaine, the sentencing is 100 times more harsh as compared to getting caught with powdered cocaine, hundred times!

This was cleverly designed in the early 90’s to go after the poor, inner-city minorities. While the rich and famous continue to abuse the more refined powdered form of this mind altering drug, the poor get jailed for years for carrying much less. For example, a person carrying 5 grams of crack is sentenced in most cases harsher than a person with 500 grams of powdered cocaine.

If it is not already obvious that the sentencing is unfair and targeted towards minorities, how about this, most crack and powdered cocaine users are white, yet over 87 percent of those arrested for possession and sentenced are black.

Tagged: Activism, CIA, Congress, Conspiracy, Economics, History, Law, Media, Non-profit, Oddities, Politics, Race, Stupid, US, drugs, socio-political

2. hso | November 2, 2006 #

@ Paulson

I heard the news on NPR and that is good enough for me (check their website for source). Obviously you are implying that I am tilting the story, but that does not alter the truth, and the truth is that we have had this disparity in the punishment imposed for the past 20 years and we continue to do so.

3. billb | November 23, 2006 #

Wow. If some idiot said “I heard Rush Limburger (yes, I know it’s Limbaugh) say it and that’s good enough for me” you’d dismiss them completely as a moron. NPR has long been criticized for slanted stories and more slanted statistics. There is no such thing as a justice system without disparities. Do you REALLY think white people doing coke is as big a problem for society as ANYONE doing crack or meth?

4. hso | November 25, 2006 #

@ Billb

You are right, I will dismiss them as complete morons. With that said, white people doing coke is as bad as colored people doing crack, that is all I care about. The issue is not what is a bigger problem to the society (I’ll let you worry about it), it is how it is addressed by people who wrote the law. Do you not feel that the law as it exists now is unfair or are you a total asshole like Rush Limbaugh?

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