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Crack cocaine. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 ( Pub. L. 111–220 (text) (PDF)) was an Act of Congress that was signed into federal law by United States President Barack Obama on August 3, 2010, that reduces the disparity between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to trigger certain federal criminal penalties from a 100:1 ...
The Anti-Drug Abuse Act created a significant disparity in the sentences imposed for crimes involving powder cocaine versus crack cocaine, with the ratio of 100 to 1. For example, a drug crime involving 5 grams of crack cocaine resulted in a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in federal prison, while crimes involving 500 grams of powder ...
An individual would need to be caught with 500 g of powder cocaine to carry the same sentence. Many scholars have argued that these laws were racist in nature since crack was a drug identified by the media and the public to be associated with black America and powder cocaine with white America.
Lawmakers are making a last-ditch push to pass legislation that seeks to reduce — but not entirely erase — sentencing disparities for crack and powder cocaine offenses before the year is finished.
The crack epidemic was a surge of crack cocaine use in major cities across the United States throughout the entirety of the 1980s and the early 1990s. [ 1][ 2] This resulted in a number of social consequences, such as increasing crime and violence in American inner city neighborhoods, a resulting backlash in the form of tough on crime policies ...
The top White House drug policy official testified that the disparities have "caused significant harm for decades, particularly for individuals, families and communities of color."
Cocaine sales are strictly illegal, but private use and personal cocaine consumption is decriminalized with a spot fine and is not a crime nor a felony. Traffickers of cocaine are sentenced with jail. Personal use is punished with a fine, contrary to common belief possession of up to 18 grams is not legal.
Dorsey v. United States, 567 U.S. 260 (2012), is a Supreme Court of the United States decision in which the Court held that reduced mandatory minimum sentences for "crack cocaine" under the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 does apply to defendants who committed a crime before the Act went into effect but who were sentenced after that date.