Dick Durbin: “I thank the Senator from Utah. When I was a Member of the House of Representatives many years ago, we were told there…”

“I thank the Senator from Utah. When I was a Member of the House of Representatives many years ago, we were told there were some dramatic changes when it came to the use of narcotics in America. In fact, they came to us and said: We are worried. There is a new form of cocaine called crack cocaine. It is dirt cheap. It is $5 for a hit. It is deadly addictive, and if a woman is addicted to it and happens to be pregnant, it could seriously damage the baby she is carrying. We did something at the time which seemed like the right thing to do. What we did was to establish a sentencing standard for crack cocaine dramatically larger than powder cocaine--100 times larger. I voted for it, and the belief was that we were sending a clear message to anyone in America: If you get caught with crack cocaine, we are going to throw the book at you. That is what we voted for. I remember that the rollcall in the House of Representatives was bipartisan. We felt--all across the spectrum: Let's get the message out and get it out now before crack cocaine causes its damage. Under the law at the time, it took 100 times more powdered cocaine than crack to trigger the same mandatory minimum sentences--100 times. For example, possessing 5 grams of crack carried the same 5-year mandatory minimum sentence as selling 500 grams of powdered cocaine. That was the 100-to-1 crack-powder sentencing disparity.…”