“The sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine is a national disgrace. Both President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have called for it to be ended, and prominent Republicans like Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions and Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn have indicated they’re sympathetic to the idea. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider the Fair Sentencing Act, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin’s proposal to eliminate the disparity entirely. ‘It is plainly unjust to hand down wildly disparate prison sentences for materially similar crimes,’ Holder said at a D.C. Court of Appeals Judicial Conference last summer. … Under current federal law, it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger the same mandatory minimum sentence as 5 grams of crack cocaine.” (03/11/10)