A fair crack

From the Houston Chronicle editorial board:

The rationale for this 100-to-1 disparity in crack vs. powder sentencing was that crack supposedly was a far more dangerous drug. Crack was thought to be instantly addictive, more likely to cause violence in users and more dangerous to unborn children. Studies show none of this is true.

Crack and powder cocaine are pharmacologically identical, and they cause the same effects on the body and brain, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

No one who is pregnant should use drugs, but the epidemic of crack babies that was supposed to cause an explosion of dire social consequences never materialized. If there is more violence associated with crack, it's because it is a drug more likely to be dealt and consumed on the streets in communities already plagued by crime and poverty.

Far harsher sentences for crack were imposed as a means to nab large-scale dealers, but this also hasn't happened. Those caught in the crack sentencing dragnet overwhelmingly have been addicts and petty sellers.

More here.

As the editorial goes on to observe, because crack is consumed in high crime and low income areas, poor African-Americans have borne the brunt of the sentencing disparity. This makes the effect of crack and cocaine laws to be utterly racist, as is most of the drug war itself, which generally finds most of its success targeting street dealers and users. Having known a few cocaine addicts here and there over the years, I'm very hesitant to call for legalizing it, but addressing the inherent racism involved in drug enforcement is definitely a move in the right direction. On the other hand, addiction is a disease, and it is only a crime by virtue of the fact that our political system continues to ignore the hard science showing that drug abuse has much less to do with morality than it does with biology. We should legalize, as well as regulate, cocaine, and channel the billions of dollars we now spend on drug enforcement into public health campaigns aimed at prevention and treatment.

We have to face the fact that the drug war has not stopped drug abuse. Further, it has destroyed countless lives while wasting untold amounts of money. Alcohol prohibition was a joke, and the nation knew it: why don't we know now what we knew then?

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