1986 really has to rank as a low point in American drug policy. Swept up in a wave of terror of a drug claimed (inaccurately) to produce instant addiction in first-time users and to lead to violent behavior, Congress passed sentencing "guidelines" mandating especially stiff sentences for possession of crack cocaine.
It seems on a cursory glance that the main real differences between powdered cocaine and crack are:
1) users sniff powder, but smoke crack;
2) powder's effects last longer;
3) more affluent users sniff. Poor people smoke. Take a wild guess what this means for racial demographics in this country.
The result has been over two decades of grimace-inducingly sharp racial sentencing disparities.
Recently, the federal government has (finally!) twigged on to the problem here, and has been thinking about correcting it-- maybe just a little, maybe entirely. So far, though, it doesn't look like anything has come of this-- and please note that the linked bit of news dates to 2007.
Happily, Washington State doesn't seem to make any distinction. Crack possession is seemingly charged as, "Possession of a controlled substance (cocaine)."
Mind you, that's still a class C felony, but it's one more topic we're a bit ahead of the federal government on.
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