The Washington Post had an editorial yesterday about an injustice that has gone on for far too long in this country:

THIS YEAR marks the 25th anniversary of legislation that created mandatory minimum sentences and established a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Over those 25 years, something close to consensus has emerged that the imbalance is unfair and possibly discriminatory. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has called for closing the gap, commenting that "we all know that this egregious difference in punishment is simply wrong." Yet it has persisted, filling America’s prisons and undermining many people’s faith in the criminal justice system. 

The effects of this policy is staggering:

The 100-to-1 ratio means that someone with 5 grams of crack — the weight of two pennies — receives the same mandatory minimum sentence as someone with 500 grams of powder cocaine. Such stringent rules have put thousands behind bars: Of current federal prisoners, 55 percent are serving time for drug offenses. Given that 84.7 percent of crack cases are brought against African Americans, the clear inequality fuels witnesses’ hesitancy to testify and drives judges and juries to take the law into their own hands, torn between mandatory minimums and their own sense of fairness.

It’s easy to see how this kind of law got passed in the first place, of course. 25 years ago, in 1984, the crack epidemic was ripping up our cities. As is typical with drug policy, our politicians overreacted and decided that crack users clearly weren’t feeling the punishment enough. So up goes the prison terms, up goes the prision population, and crack? Well, it’s still around.

Which really just goes to highlight the unfortunate trend in all our drug laws: They are universally made by overreaction, with little regard to whether these policies deter drug use or even make sense.

Let’s repeal this thing. It would be a small start toward sensible drug policy.