Attorney General Merrick Garland issued new guidance on Friday essentially eliminating the disparity in federal sentencing for the distribution of crack cocaine versus powder cocaine, a policy that has long punished crack offenders, and people of color, more severely. Offenses involving 500 grams of powder cocaine carried the same 5-year mandatory minimum prison time as offenses involving 28 grams of crack cocaine, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan public policy research institute. Crack cocaine became prevalent in the 1980s, sparking a nationwide “war on drugs” and leading to the passage of two federal sentencing laws concerning crack cocaine in 1986 and 1988 that created the discrepancies, according to The Sentencing Project, which advocated for overhauling the sentencing guidelines. The road to sentencing reform for crack offenders was partly put into motion in 2018 with the First Step Act, which, in part, shortened mandatory federal prison sentences, including for those in prison for pre-2010 crack cocaine offenses. The new guidance was applauded by several groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which called it "a big win and a historic step in the right direction toward eliminating the unjust disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing."

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