Crack in the Drug War

Get caught with 5 grams of crack cocaine, you get 5 years in prison.

But you need to get caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine to get the same sentence.

Sentencing for crack cocaine
is insane.

The scare story, at one point, was that crack was vastly more addictive than powder coke, and was destroying poor communities, etc.

So - giving credit where credit is due, I want to applaud the new administration's intention of getting rid of the special crack penalties.

But does it really make sense to lock people up for putting dangerous chemicals in their bodies?

I'm not a proponent of drug usage, and cocaine can kill you in the right circumstances, but a lot of these laws are based on wildly exaggerated claims.

I think that putting people in jail
for using - is an epic fail.