Crack Cocaine

Finally, some sanity in Houston! The Harris County District Attorney has announced that beginning January 1, people caught with trace amounts of drugs or drug paraphernalia with drug traces will no longer be charged with felonies.

A bill that would eliminate the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity by punishing federal crack offenses the same way it punishes powder offenses has passed a key committee vote and is headed for the House floor. Companion legislation is brewing in the Senate.

What a difference control of Congress makes! For years, pressure has been building to redress the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Now, finally, a bill that would do that is moving in the House, and while it's a Democratic bill it's getting strong bipartisan support. Things are looking good in the Senate too.

Plans are afoot in the British Isles to push "problem drug users" into treatment and onto the job market, but the government is going to have to do more, a new report says.

A cocaine shortage is leading to a wave of killings in Cincinnati. Local officials are close to making the link between prohibition and the violence, but they're not there yet.

US Attorney General lashed out against early release for federal crack cocaine offenders twice last week, resorting to demagogic claims and warning he may try to block it.

In the latest installment of an ongoing snitch scandal in northeast Ohio, a federal judge has freed 15 men sentenced to prison on crack conspiracy charges based on perjured testimony from a DEA informant. Now, the informant is in prison, and the DEA agent is in the crosshairs.

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of a Virginia man sentenced under the harsh federal crack cocaine laws. This is the third case having to do with federal sentencing the court has taken in recent months.

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan wants to start a pilot stimulant maintenance program for up to 700 hard-core cocaine and meth users in the city's Downtown Eastside. Now he has released a poll showing strong support for the idea among Vancouver residents.

A federal appeals court has thrown out a long crack cocaine sentence, saying the sentencing guidelines that call for tougher sentences for crack than cocaine are no longer mandatory, but only advisory since last year's US Supreme Court ruling in Booker.