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Carrie Johnson at the Washington Post has written a nice story on the Durbin bill to reduce federal crack cocaine penalties to the level of powder cocaine penalties. It quotes my colleagues Jasmine Tyler of Drug Policy Alliance (known inside the Beltway as "Jazz") and Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), the sentencing reform group that has led the fight to end mandatory minimums since the early '90s. I have a minor nitpick with the article, which is that it presents the issue as having civil rights and justice reform advocates and some politicos on one side, with law enforcement on the other, quoting a spokesperson for the Fraternal Order of Police saying that in the past their members have favored raising powder cocaine penalties instead. While the article doesn't say that all law enforcement is against reducing the penalties, it does fail to mention that there is also law enforcement support for lowering penalties. The press release from Sen. Durbin announcing the bill cites Los Angeles police chief William Bratton, Miami police chief John Timoney, and the National Black Police Association. I also have to comment on some of the comments I saw by Post readers. Most of the commenters were in support of reducing penalties as the bill does. But a few characterized it as "stupid," saying it would allow people to go on selling crack in inner city black communities, and thereby hurting those communities. As usual, it's the people throwing around words like "stupid" who've done the least thinking about the issue. If they had in fact stopped to think, they would realize that: 1) possession sentences are getting adjusted by this bill, helping people now going to prison for years for just for possessing tiny quantities of crack; and that: (2) incarcerating a drug dealer just creates a job opportunity for another dealer. Often the new would-be dealers fight it out over the old dealer's turf, hurting the community much much more.

Check out the brand new redesigned Flex Your Rights website, which is so filled with delicious know-your-rights info and advice that it might even make you wanna go out looking for trouble. Of course, the point is not to embolden you (being cocky is a huge mistake), but rather to provide answers that aren’t available elsewhere and help people heal just a little from the pressure and confusion of living in a nation that jails more of its citizens than any other.

So please take a look and share it with friends and family. This is your first -- and sometimes only -- line of defense.

A post at the LEAP blog points out that John Walters has been conspicuously quiet recently. After beginning his new position as executive vice president at the Hudson Institute in January, Walters was producing pro-drug war editorials on a monthly basis, but we haven't seen anything from him since spring.

LEAP speculates:

Perhaps, toward the end of 2008, Hudson thought it a brilliant notion to bring on Walters to spearhead prohibitionist drug policy thought leadership for the conservative apparatus.

But after witnessing the amazingly anti-prohibitionist shift that the public discourse on drug policy has taken throughout 2009, it seems that Hudson and the larger conservative establishment -- or anyone, for that matter -- just don't have all that much use for what John Walters has to say right about now.

I'd love to think that Hudson told him to stop, or better yet, that he's been writing feverishly this whole time and newspapers just won’t print him anymore. Still, my first guess is that it's just a coincidence and Walters will resurface any day now to once again stink up the drug policy debate with his familiar brand of unhinged prohibitionist propaganda.

And you know what? I hope he does. John Walters's tenure as drug czar ushered in an unprecedented period of progress for the reform movement, as he traveled the nation alienating the media and terrifying small children. I swear, every time he opens his mouth, thousands of new people start questioning the validity of his beliefs. So please John, don't leave us now. Things are just starting to get interesting.

Oakland's new cannabis tax was highlighted on the PBS Lehrer News Hour report last night. The tax, counterintuitively, was supported by members of the Oakland medical marijuana community who are now subject to it -- an effective demonstration of the value the quasi-legal marijuana trade has for the Oakland community as a whole, at least that's the idea. I haven't had a chance to review the footage yet -- talk amongst yourselves. Favorable, neutral or otherwise, it's very much a sign of the times.

Update: There's video footage from C-Span2 of a Tuesday Congressional briefing on this issue by the Crack the Disparity coalition, online here. First speaker, Chief of NAACP DC Bureau Hilary Shelton. In July we reported that a bill in the House of Representatives, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act Fair Sentencing Act of 2009, had passed the full Judiciary Committee. Today Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced a Senate version of the bill. There's no bill number yet, but we'll post back with it when available. Click here to read the Durbin office's press release. The Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act Fair Sentencing Act would increase the quantities of crack cocaine that are needed to trigger certain mandatory minimum sentences. Currently one can receive a five-year mandatory minimum prison term for possession of just five grams of crack cocaine, vs. 500 grams of powder cocaine needed for the same sentence, for example. Passage of the Act will mean that it would take 500 grams of crack to trigger the mandatory. In addition to Durbin, seven other Judiciary Committee members are original cosponsors: Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT), Judiciary Committee Members Arlen Specter (D-PA), Feingold (D-WI), Cardin (D-MD), Whitehouse (D-RI), Kaufman (D-DE) and Franken (D-MN). Two other senators, John Kerry (D-MA) and Chris Dodd (D-CT) are also original cosponsors. While these are all Democrats, some conservative Republican senators had indicated they were likely to or were considering also supporting it. We'll see what happens. We were one of many organizations signing a letter to the Hill supporting this reform. Groups cited in the press release as supporting the bill include the American Bar Association, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Black Police Association, and the United Methodist Church. The release also cites as supporters LA and Miami police chiefs Bill Bratton and John Timoney, and US Attorney General Eric Holder. All of these sentences should be repealed, of course, but in the meanwhile the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act Fair Sentencing Act will help a lot of people to avoid some terribly long prison terms. Crack sentencing has been an injustice since the laws were passed in the mid-'80s, and a political issue since at least the early '90s when I started tuning in, so it's taken awhile to get to this point. It is looking pretty good for this to finally happen, but we can't take anything for granted. Look for an action alert sometime next week after there's a bill number.