Apparently, according to the Democrats(some Republicans) and the ACLU, we are just being meanies.
There are currently, some bills floating around Congress that will lower the punishment for drug dealers and drug users of crack cocaine.
Momentum is building in Congress to ease crack cocaine sentencing guidelines, which the American Civil Liberties Union and other critics say have filled prisons with low-level drug dealers and addicts whose punishments were much worse than their crimes.
Federal prison sentences for possessing or selling crack have far exceeded those for powder cocaine for two decades. House Crime Subcommittee chairman Robert Scott, D-Va., a longtime critic of such sentencing policies, plans to hold hearings on crack sentences this year. In the Senate, Republican Jeff Sessions of Alabama is drawing bipartisan support for his proposal to ease crack sentences.
cont...
Here is another news flash- Crack Cocaine still kills
Now Congress and the ACLU want to make life easier on crack cocaine dealers that are selling their crack on America's streets.
Here are some statitics that Congress may want to mull on before making life easier on drug dealers.
In 2004, 34.2 million Americans aged 12 and over reported lifetime use of cocaine, and 7.8 million reported using crack. About 5.6 million reported annual use of cocaine, and 1.3 million reported using crack. An estimated 2 million Americans reported current use of cocaine, 467,000 of whom reported using crack. There were an estimated 1 million new users of cocaine in 2004 (approximately 2,700 per day), and most were aged 18 or older although the average age of first use was 20.0 years.
I guess the war on drugs is officially over for the US Congress. Apparently that war is also too hard to fight.
1 comment:
Powder cocaine kills also. As the more prevalent form of cocaine, making the sentence stiffer for that form seems to make sense. Reading in the story a little further than where it is cut off in the blog entry, the story states, "Sessions' bill would lessen the sentencing disparity by increasing punishments for powder cocaine and decreasing them for crack. Crimes involving crack would still draw stiffer sentences, but the difference would not be as dramatic.."
This would hardly seem like a surrender in the drug war---a war whose botched strategy is far worse than in any other American war. The changes would bring more parity in the sentencing for all dealers of cocaine in any form.
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