CRACK VS POWDER DISPARITY PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE DrugSense FOCUS Alert #356 - Saturday, 29 December 2007 The past month realized a long overdue alteration in federal sentencing guidelines pertaining to drug law offenders convicted of possession and/or distribution of cocaine. For two long decades, federal laws have mandated that those offenders found with crack cocaine - should be sentenced to much more draconian prison time than those who were convicted of involvement with the more commonly used powder form of cocaine. Most notably, sentencing guidelines were founded on the basis of product weight. Crack-related sentences on par to powder sentences were triggered by weights as small as a 1/100 ratio. Most defense lawyers and civil rights advocates say the lopsided perception of crack versus cocaine is rooted in racism. Four out of every five crack defendants are black, while most powdered-cocaine defendants are white. MAP has been archiving news and opinion coverage on this important story line over the past few weeks. Additionally, fresh coverage is seeing print across the U.S. this week. Please consider writing and sending a Letter to the Editor directed to the newspapers closest to your hometown which have printed coverage of this story line and to the major newspapers as the articles and opinions are printed. Target news clippings may be found at this MAP Bookmark: Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Sentencing+Commission If you elect to write to more than one newspaper, we strongly suggest at least some modification of your message so that each newspaper receives a unique letter. Letters of 200 words or less have the best chance of print unless otherwise noted in MAP headers. As a number of the clippings suggest, the disparity will not be totally removed until congress acts. Please inform your members of congress about your views. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides Or contact MAP's Media Activism Facilitator for personal tips on how to write LTEs that get printed. PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ( ) if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ( ) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Prepared by: The MAP Media Activism Team www.mapinc.org/resource =.

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