| Abstract: | The US has taken an active role in formulating drugs policy for over a century, and thus much debate on how best to control drug use occurs in that country. Though most Americans support keeping drugs illegal, voices for changing the specifics of how prohibition is administered have grown louder and more effective in the past ten years—witness the recent success on the state and local level for rolling back restrictions on medical cannabis or punitive state mandatory minimum penalties (i.e. Rockefeller drug laws). Expectedly, these successful reforms have happened with the support of voters in those particular states and localities where reforms have been introduced. On the federal level, the accusation of racism has become a familiar cry among anti‐prohibitionists, who argue that cocaine laws, in particular, disproportionately affect African‐Americans and contribute to racial division. The federal government makes a great distinction in sentencing between powder cocaine, usually snorted, and crack cocaine, which is smoked. A person caught in possession of five grams of crack gets an automatic mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison. Possessing cocaine in its powder form does not carry a mandatory minimum. Additionally, these laws are the target of much debate because, for trafficking in the drug, it takes 100 times more powder cocaine than crack to trigger the same mandatory minimum penalty (the so‐called “100 to 1 quantity ratio”). I will argue that repealing the mandatory minimum sentence for crack is both justified based on the evidence and politically viable. Although the number of people affected by this law every year is minuscule, African‐Americans are undoubtedly disproportionately affected by the penalty. Eliminating the provision should not be expected to have a deleterious effect on crime or drug control efforts, and would instead have a positive effect in reinvigorating faith in the criminal justice system and in promoting positive race relations. Very importantly, it is a politically realistic reform for making prohibition work better. Erasing or dramatically changing the more controversial 100 to 1 quantity ratio—though affecting far more people than the mandatory minimum for crack possession—may or may not justify itself based on the evidence. Nonetheless, it is certainly not a politically realistic option for lawmakers. |
