"Health & Medical News"

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey is asking Congress to reverse a decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission to apply reduced sentences for crack-cocaine offenses retroactively, Reuters reported Feb. 6.

The commission recently voted unanimously to reduce the crack penalties to bring them more into line with those for powdered-cocaine offenses and to apply the reduced penalties to individuals already in prison. The policy takes effect next month.

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Raising the specter of convicted crack-cocaine offenders being released from prison due to sentencing reform, Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey asked Congress to appropriate $200 million to help cities fight violent crime, the Washington Post reported Jan. 25.

In an address before the U.S. Conference of Mayors — which last year unanimously adopted a resolution calling the War on Drugs a failure — Mukasey cited the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s decision to retroactively equalize penalties for crack and powdered cocaine in warning that “a sudden influx of criminals from federal prison into your communities could lead to a surge in new victims as a tragic, but predictable, result.”

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Facing criticism from law enforcement and the drug-prevention community, the Hershey candy company has announced that it will stop making Ice Breakers Pacs — dissolvable mint packages that some said resembled bags of crack cocaine.

The Associated Press reported Jan. 24 that concerns about Ice Breakers Pacs were raised by the Philadelphia narcotics squad, who said the candy looked like the heat-sealed bags of crack being sold on local streets. Philadelphia’s chief police inspector, William Blackburn, was among the loudest critics of the product.

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The government of British Columbia, Canada is distributing free crack-pipe mouthpieces in an attempt to prevent transmission of hepatitis C among drug users who pass around the pipes, The Province reported Jan. 3.

“People who smoke crack often burn their lips and have sores on their lips, and that sore can have blood in it,” explained Perry Kendall, chief medical health officer for the province. “A well-run [mouthpiece] program offers a lot of promise to reduce blood-borne diseases and to introduce people to health care and addiction treatment services as well.”

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Warnings about a flood of released prisoners by federal officials and others opposed to lowering penalties for crack-cocaine offenders don’t hold water, the Chicago Tribune reported Dec. 18.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently voted to reduce the crack penalties and make them retroactive to offenders already imprisoned. Opposing that decision, acting U.S. deputy attorney general Craig Morford said it would “make thousands of dangerous prisoners, many of them violent gang members, eligible for immediate release.”

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Canadian researchers say that drug users face the risk of contracting the Hepatitis C virus if they share crack pipes with other users, Psysorg.com reported Dec. 12.

Researchers studied 51 crack users in Toronto, collecting crack pipes shortly after use and testing both the users and pipes for Hepatitis C. Twenty-two users tested positive for the disease, and one of the crack pipes tested positive for Hepatitis C (HCV) antibodies.

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In a 7-2 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a judge’s decision to violate federal sentencing guidelines and impose a shorter prison term on a man convicted of possession of crack cocaine, the Associated Press reported Dec. 10.

Weighing in on the controversy surrounding sentencing disparities for crack and powdered cocaine, the high court said that a judge had the discretion to sentence crack offender Derrick Kimbrough to 15 years in prison rather than the recommended 19 to 22 years.

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Members of the U.S. Sentencing Commission were sharply critical of the U.S. Justice Department’s contention that retroactively cutting the sentences of about 19,500 crack-cocaine offenders would glut the court system, the Washington Post reported Nov. 14.

Gretchen C.F. Shappert, a U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, cited concern about “the unforeseen consequences of releasing such large numbers of convicted drug offenders into vulnerable communities in a relatively short period of time,” including backlogging court cases and stressing halfway houses. She also suggested that making the sentence reductions retroactive would result in setting violent offenders free.

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Thousands of prisoners convicted of crack-cocaine offenses could see their sentences cut and be released from prison if the U.S. Sentencing Commission makes recent changes in sentencing guidelines retroactive, the Los Angeles Times reported Nov. 12.

A new policy aimed at equalizing penalties for crack and powder cocaine, if applied to past as well as future offenders, would cut an average of about two years off the sentences of 19,500 federal prisoners, which would result in the release of about 2,500 prisoners.

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The U.S. Sentencing Commission has issued new guidelines that reduce average sentences for crack-cocaine offenses and bring penalties more in line with those meted out to offenders caught selling or possessing powdered cocaine, the New York Times reported Nov. 2.

After years of debate over the sentencing disparity*, the sentencing panel quietly reduced the average crack sentence from 10 years, 1 month to 8 years, 10 months. Congress let a mandatory 180-day review period pass without challenging the commission’s recommendation.

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