Man Receives 15 Year Sentence For Unweighable Amount Of Crack

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police found such a small amount of crack cocaine in James V. Taylor’s car that investigators described it as unweighable. It was enough for a 15-year prison sentence in Missouri, where the courts make an enormous distinction between crack and powder cocaine.

Missouri and several other states followed the federal government’s lead in creating such disparities decades ago, but now federal law has changed and prisoner advocates say it’s time for the states to do the same. Most drug cases are prosecuted at the state level.
Defense attorneys and other critics of the tougher crack sentences say they subject mostly blacks to long prison terms while those caught with powder cocaine — mostly whites — get far more lenient treatment. Some prosecutors defend the disparities, saying that because crack is smoked, it gets into the bloodstream faster than snorted cocaine, produces a more intense high and is generally considered more addictive.
The federal government imposed tougher sentences for crack in 1986, when use of the drug was rampant and 22-year-old basketball star Len Bias died of cocaine intoxication. Early news reports said Bias had used crack, but after the federal law was passed a teammate of Bias’ testified that Bias had actually snorted powder cocaine the night he died.

Source: www.newsone.com

I don't know how you feel about this but in my opinion some of these crack laws are excessive and targeted at black men! I'm not saying selling/slanging is the way to go but over half of the black males in the U.S. are incarcerated! We are putting more money into the system than the community, that's a problem. We have got to figure out a way to break this cycle.