Cocaine Laws

Sentence disparities between powder and crack cocaine were enacted in 1986 under the Anti-Drug Abuse Act. This act imposed strict penalties for simple possession and/or trafficking of crack cocaine as a result of the crack epidemic of the early 1980s. A federal mandatory minimum sentence structure with very different penalties for crack and powder cocaine was enacted as part of the War on Drugs, which was based on the deterrence model of punishment that prevailed during the 1980s. This entry reviews the nature of the problem related to cocaine laws, their impact on African Americans, and attempts to equalize the cocaine and crack cocaine penalties.

One aspect that is of concern, when examining the disproportionate sentencing of African Americans, is whether cocaine users are more likely to be White than African American. Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health in the United States in 2004 showed that 1,508,000 White Americans and 347,000 African Americans had used powder cocaine in the previous month. Thus, many more White Americans use cocaine, yet fewer White Americans have been tried and sentenced under federal mandatory minimum drug laws. According to the survey, 66% of cocaine users were White Americans, while only 15% of cocaine users were African Americans. In 2004, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that 281,000 White Americans and 246,000 African Americans had used crack cocaine in the previous month. However, in 2000, 85% of offenders sentenced by the federal government for mandatory minimum crack cocaine sentences were African American.

Mandatory minimum prison sentences have increased the number of individuals incarcerated for drug offenses. Because African Americans are over-represented in the prison system, their removal from the family or community structure has a significant negative effect on their families and communities. Imprisonment often imposes great financial and emotional strain on families. The direct financial costs associated with incarceration can encompass bail, attorney fees, charges for pretrial confinement at the county jail, and loss of income during pretrial confinement and incarceration. The high incarceration rate for African American men and women also negatively affects the children of incarcerated parents. A large majority of these children live with their grandparents; however, 9.6% of state inmates' children are placed in foster care, and 3.2% of the children of federal inmates are placed in foster care. Thus, a disproportionate number of African American children are placed outside the home in the child welfare system.

Research has revealed that African Americans are arrested more frequently and punished more harshly than are White Americans. White Americans are often more affluent, and therefore they may use and possess drugs in their homes or in areas that are not in the “policing spotlight” of urban inner cities. Policing policies that put more officers in urban inner cities for special operations like drug stings account for some of the disproportionate arrest and incarceration rates of African Americans.

[Page 126]Federal mandatory minimum sentences for cocaine originated as a result of what has been termed the “crack epidemic”—what could be considered a “moral panic” created by the news media about the sudden increase in crack cocaine use in urban areas. As a result of the media hype and widespread citizen support, Congress adopted federal mandatory minimums for the possession of crack and powder cocaine. The adopted sentences exhibited discrepancies in sentence length of individuals arrested for possessing crack cocaine compared to those possessing powder cocaine. The ratio of crack and powder cocaine was set at a 100-to-l level. Thus, for example, an individual caught possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine would receive the same 5-year mandatory minimum sentence as a defendant in possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine.

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