From: [wren 1] at [ccnet.com]
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: congress/powered cocaine bill
Date: 10 Nov 1995 03:52:43 GMT

WASHINGTON
November 07, 1995

Federal lawmakers, working to reduce perceived racial bias in the drug war, introduced a bill in the Senate on Tuesday that
would greatly increase prison time for "traffickers"? of powderd cocaine, raising the penalties to the same levels as those for 
crack.  More than 88 percent of those sentenced for crack are African-American, federal (?!!) studies show.  More than 71 
percent of those sentenced for powdered cocaine are  white or Hispanic.

Under current law, it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to result in the same five-year mandatory prison sentence that five 
grams of crack brings.

William Moffitt of the National  Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said the bill was a  political expedient.  Moffit says 
lawmakers hope to appeal to  African-Americans, by saying they had addressed the issue of racial disparity, but at the same 
time not alienate other voters clamoring for get-tough criminal  policies.

  " It's a ploy," he says.  "It's an effort to take the heat off of something that everybody knows is unfair." Politicians are loath 
to do anything that would make them appear soft on crime and provide ammunition  for campaign opponents' sound bites, said 
Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation.

 In recent elections, for example, bills  for stiffer sentences received broad support and tough-talking candidates were swept 
into office,  Crime,"is sort of an electoral third rail,"  says  Sterling, former legal counsel to a House crime subcommittee.  Marc 
Franc of the CONSERVATIVE Heritage Foundation at this point said he saw little opposition to the bill, particularly from the 
liberal side.  "There is no left (wing position) in these debates," he said.  "The left is in full-scale retreat on all these 
criminal-justice issues."


END THE WAR ON DRUGS