A 2019 Asbury Park Press and USA Today Network study of nationwide arrest records and federal drug convictions found that a majority of crack users in the U.S. The laws furthered mass incarceration and disproportionately impacted impoverished people and people of color-community groups often overpoliced to begin with-as crack cocaine has historically been more accessible to poorer Americans. (Crack and powder cocaine are derived from the same chemicals, but crack cocaine is processed with additives that make it a solid “rock” shape.) Portions of the First Step Act of 2018 took aim at the Anti-Drug Abuse Acts of 1986, which established the infamous 100-to-1 powder to crack cocaine ratio-meaning possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine brought a comparable sentence to the mandatory minimum for 5 grams of crack. “This circuit split is untenable,” Terry’s legal team had argued in his petition, pointing out “geography alone now determines” whether “countless” people serving low-level crack cocaine convictions could apply for sentence reduction. Judges in the Third, Sixth and Tenth Circuits have ruled the same in similar cases, but judges in the First and Fourth Circuits have disagreed. The circuit court had ruled that the First Step Act only covered high and mid-level crack offenders-not low-level ones like Terry.
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