Getting Past Crack

Via SL&P, this Sunday's Washington Post magazine had a great article about Michael Short, a man who was sentenced to almost two decades in prison as a first-time crack offender. Short was granted a sentence commutation by Duhbya in 2007, only a few months shy of the end of his sentence. The article is about his struggle to restart his life and efforts to remedy the harsh crack sentencing laws. It's also about how a good kid, star athlete, and "mama's boy" wound up dealing in crack. It's a must read for everyone who's ever thought "how could he be so stupid?"

More depressing, however, is the story of how we wound up in this mess in the first place:

IN THE SUMMER OF 1986, WHEN MIKE WAS 15, the Boston Celtics selected Len Bias as their first pick in the NBA draft. A Celtics scout compared him to Michael Jordan, and Bias told a reporter that the first thing he planned to buy was a Mercedes. Two days later, he collapsed in his dorm suite at the University of Maryland, dead of a cocaine overdose. The community that had cheered for him staggered like a man punched in the gut. Here was a kid from Prince George's County who had laid claim to the American dream with all the ease of a pro executing a layup. "I can't see why we would lose someone like this," the director of a recreation center where Bias had played as a kid told The Washington Post. "Someone so important to us."

Initial medical reports indicated, incorrectly, that the high concentration of cocaine in Bias's blood suggested that he had died after smoking crack, then the latest drug to hit America's city streets. Made from powder cocaine cooked with baking soda, crack was cheaper than powder, and, because it was smoked, the high was more intense.

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In Congress, then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill, a Democrat whose Boston constituents couldn't stop talking about Bias's death, saw a political opportunity. Throughout the 1980s, the federal government had waded deeper into the war on drugs, part of a trend spawned by the turmoil of the 1960s and '70s. Bias's death offered a perfect chance to capitalize on the growing public outcry, especially over crack. "The speaker realizes, if the Democrats take the lead on this, if we play it right, maybe we can win the Senate back," Eric E. Sterling said recently. He was assistant counsel to the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime in 1986 and now heads the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, a Silver Spring nonprofit that educates the public about criminal justice issues.

O'Neill convened the steering and policy committee of the House Democrats and moved the formation of tougher drug laws to the top of the agenda. Sterling and other staffers were told to draft a law that would punish high-level traffickers, but they didn't know what amount of drugs would qualify someone as "high-level" and, with the midterm election campaign season just a few days away, they didn't have time to determine that, Sterling said. No hearings were held.

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 established the mandatory minimum drug sentences that remain in effect today. It imposed a five-year mandatory prison term for first-time trafficking of five or more grams of crack or 500 grams of powder, and a 10-year mandatory minimum for first-time trafficking of 50 grams of crack or five kilos of powder. In drug policy circles, this is known as the "100-to-1 drug quantity ratio," and it has hit African Americans hardest because they are more likely to live in the neighborhoods where crack cocaine is used and sold, even though, in absolute numbers, most crack users are white. In 2006, 82 percent of crack offenders sentenced under federal law were African American, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency set up to develop a national sentencing policy for the federal courts.

Two years later, Congress added a five-year mandatory minimum for simple possession of crack. But, as we've since learned, the assumptions fueling the crack hysteria haven't come to pass:

One former supporter, Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, had recently told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the sentencing disparity could not be justified: "Our intentions were good, but much of our information turns out not to be as good as our intentions."

It is true, medical experts say, that crack is more addictive than powder cocaine; smoking and injecting offer quicker routes to the bloodstream than snorting, and the faster, more intense highs lead to an increased rate of addiction. But statistics have not borne out fears of widespread violence associated with crack. In 2005, only 6 percent of powder cocaine offenses and 10 percent of crack offenses involved violence or a threat of violence, according to the Sentencing Commission. The predicted "crack babies" did not materialize, either. Although some early studies of individual children suggested that crack had devastating effects on fetuses, long-term case studies showed that alcohol is more dangerous to a fetus than any form of cocaine, including crack, and has affected a far greater number of children, said Harolyn Belcher, a neuro-developmental pediatrician and director of research at the Kennedy Krieger Institute's Family Center in Baltimore.

"This was one of the few times when [Congress] really rushed to complete and formulate the sentencing before the science was really there," Belcher said.

Actually, there's debate even as to the addictive effects. From what I remember of the latest Congressional hearings, crack and powder cocaine are chemically identical. And while the crack high comes quicker (due to the mode of use), it's not significantly more addictive.

From a political standpoint, there are two salient points to take away from this story. First, neither political party is on the right side here. The idea that you would lock people in cages for decades to score political points is offensive and outrageous. Second, it's easy to see why it works - just look at the comments to the Washington Post piece and the people braying for even larger pounds of flesh and reiterating disproved anti-crack talking points.

Beyond that, it's a very interesting portrait of a fallen man trying to go straight and make his way in the world. It's very worth a few minutes of your time.