By DENISE LAVOIE and BILL DRAPER
Associated Press Writers
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Police found such a small amount of crack cocaine in James V. Taylor’s car that investigators described it as unweighable. It was enough for a 15-year prison sentence in Missouri, where the courts make an enormous distinction between crack and powder cocaine.
Missouri and several other states followed the federal government’s lead in creating such disparities decades ago, but now federal law has changed and prisoner advocates say it’s time for the states to do the same. Most drug cases are prosecuted at the state level.
Defense attorneys and other critics of the tougher crack sentences say they subject mostly blacks to long prison terms while those caught with powder cocaine – mostly whites – get far more lenient treatment. Some prosecutors defend the disparities, saying that because crack is smoked, it gets into the bloodstream faster than snorted cocaine, produces a more intense high and is generally considered more addictive.