No Longer A Pipedream

By Kleinheider Posted on May 4, 2009 at 7:28 am

Activists lobby legislators to end the practice of giving harsher sentences to those who possess crack than those who possess powdered cocaine:

Similarly, there was no arm wrestling when they met with U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. He’s already a co-sponsor of two drug sentencing reform bills.

Norman and Coleman-Davis also met with U.S. Reps. John Tanner, D-Tenn., and representatives for Tennessee Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, both R-Tenn., and U.S. Rep. Zack Wamp, R-Tenn. (Coleman-Davis also met with staffers from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.)

Norman said he believes some politicians “don’t want to be perceived as easy on crime,” but he told them, “We want to be tough on crime, but just on sentencing.”

Both Coleman-Davis and Norman noted that powder and crack cocaine are the same drug pharmacologically.

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Tags: cocaine, crack, John Tanner, Lamar Alexander, powdered cocaine, Steve Cohen, Zack Wamp  

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