From: Sasha Oeming <[k--u--u] at [umich.edu]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: Spence speaks out!
Date: 5 Dec 1995 08:26:32 GMT

Here we are from the Detroit Free Press on Monday, December 4 and an 
editorial comment from our wonderful republican senator...take it away, 
Spencie!

STAY TOUGH ON CRACK

Your Nov. 24 editorial "Crack Sentences: Getting tough on drugs 
shouldn't be an injustice" argued that a unanimous Senate, an 
overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives (including a 
majority of Democrats) and the president all erred in enacting 
legislation I authored. The legislation blocked the U.S. Sentencing 
Commission's planned lowering of sentences for crack cocaine dealers.

Current tough sentences have put away drug kingpins for long periods of 
time. That includes the Chambers ring in Detroit, which was producing 
between 120,000 and 250,000 rocks of crack a week. We should not now 
signal those poisoning our children that the costs of doing business are 
going down.

Yet that is precisely the message the Sentencing Commission's 
unprecedented proposal would have sent. That proposal grew from the 
perception that crack sentences are unfair. Why? Because the often bring 
more jail time to small-time crack dealers, nearly all minority, than to 
big-time powder cocaine dealers, many of them white.

The law does treat powder dealers differnetly from crack dealers. A 
dealer gets the same sentence for selling 5 grams of crack and 500 grams 
of powder. Note that quantity, not the sentence, is 100 times higher. 
The sentence for distributing a particular quantity of crack is two to 
six times as high as that for distributing the same quantity of powder.

And some differential is justified. Crack is dangerous, addictive, 
available to young people, and associated with violence -- more so than 
simple powder. Nevertheless, I agree with critics that the difference is 
too great. But this is not because crack sentences are too high, but 
because powder sentences are too low.

That is why I introduced both the crack bill and a bill to toughen 
sentences for powder dealers. This second bill would lower the quantity 
of powder subjectijng dealers to mandatory minimum sentences. It would 
make the crack/powder quantity ratio the same as that for other 
source-derivative drugs, such as heroin and opium.

I am convinced the resulting system will be fair. You state that "white 
defendants have a greater opportunity to avoid the mandatory federal 
sentences by opting for prosecution in state courts." But that option 
belongs to prosecutors, who are forbidden to conseder race in choosing 
forums. I know of no evidence showing that racial considerations play a 
role in these decisions. If this problem appears, we must address it 
vigorously and sternly. But that is no argument for weakening our drug 
laws.

Finally, you state that "the crack/powder disparities can lead to 
violence of their own: Several riots at federal prisons (in October) 
appeared to be, in large part, a protest against the Abraham bill." To 
say that Congress' refusal to lighten drug sentences caused prison 
violence, in the same way that drug dealing causes violence in 
communitites, is misplaced moral equivalency.

It would be irresponsible to reward prisoners' misconduct by lowering 
sentences and freeing them to traffic in drugs and violence among people 
struggling to obey the law and bring up law-abiding children.

Spencer Abraham
United States Senate
Auburn Hills

Any typos are my own...it's late and i don't feel like proofing...sorry!

Flying over your house,

Sasha