Other drugs such as methamphetamine and heroin, also are more problematic if smoked or injected - yet the law doesn’t mete out punishment based on how the user opts to ingest them. ![]() The overriding distinction, however, is method of use. While crack is chemically identical to powder cocaine, the sentencing disparity was not irrational given that smoking crack compared with snorting powder produces a more immediate and intense, albeit more ephemeral, “high,” characteristics that research shows create a greater propensity for dependence. Crack is cocaine powder that has been processed to create a rock crystal, which is smoked. In 2018, about 5.5 million people above age 12 - in a nation of 330 million people - told government researchers they had used cocaine at some time, including 757,000 who had used crack. With the summer recess and midterm election beckoning, however, floor time is precious and public awareness of this issue is limited, as it luckily affects just a small percentage of the population. As recently as 2019, 81 percent of those convicted in federal courts for crack offenses were Black Americans. Whatever the intentions, the result was that many Americans - c - were sentenced to decades in prison for the equivalent of a few sugar packets of crack, while those who had the same amount of powder cocaine received a small fraction of the penalty.
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