WHEREAS, the five-year federal mandatory minimum sentencing amount for cocaine base (hereinafter crack is five grams and the corresponding amount for cocaine hydrochloride (hereinafter powder cocaine)is 500 gms;and WHEREAS, the ten-year federal mandatory minimum amount for crack is 50 grams and the corresponding amount for powder cocaine is five kilograms; and

WHEREAS, crack is distributed on the street at the retail level in relatively small amounts that are both inexpensive and potent; and

WHEREAS, the marketing and the violence associated with the marketing of crack as compared to powder cocaine is significantly different; and

WHEREAS, in the fiscal year 2008, statistics from the United States Sentencing Commission show that 25.4 percent of crack cases involved defendants in criminal history category VI compared with 8.5 percent of powder cocaine defendants, while 27.4 percent of crack cases involved a weapon as opposed to 16.8 percent for cocaine cases; and WHEREAS, to ensure effective law enforcement, crack sentences must remain closely related to the amounts of crack that are typically possessed for distribution; and

WHEREAS, federal mandatory penalties provide an unambiguous and useful deterrent to the trafficking of both crack and powder cocaine and provide a useful tool in encouraging drug traffickers to cooperate and potentially testify against the leaders of their organizations; and

WHEREAS, proposals to remove the federal mandatory minimums for crack and powder cocaine, and to otherwise eliminate the disparity for crack and powder cocaine by sentencing crack in the same manner that powder cocaine is currently sentenced, would threaten efforts to investigate and prosecute significant and violent drug offenders that deal crack; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, that the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) duly assembled at its 116th Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado, urges the continuation of mandatory sentences for crack and powder cocaine, and be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the IACP urges that any modifications to eliminate the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentencing be made by significantly adjusting downward the cocaine powder mandatory minimum amount to levels which correspond to the current levels for crack so that the law enforcement community will still be able to deal effectively with the violent crack organizations that plague our communities.

Submitted by: Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Committee

NDD.008.a09