The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 enacted mandatory minimum prison sentences designed to provide severe penalties for violations involving the possession or distribution of crack cocaine. Inspired by the hysteria surrounding the national crack and AIDS epidemics in the early 1980s, the Reagan administration reintroduced mandatory minimum sentencing laws, making them broader and more rigid than earlier drug laws. This act subsequently led to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, which approved the death penalty for drug traffickers and gave the military the authority to pursue and apprehend those individuals smuggling drugs into the United States.

The act imposed severe penalties for high-profile drugs (i.e., crack cocaine): a prison sentence of 5 to 40 years for possession of the substance. These newly enacted laws ranked drug crimes among the most severely punished offenses in the United States. Sentencing guidelines adopted a 100:1 quantity ratio, treating 1 gram of crack cocaine the same as 100 grams of powdered cocaine. Also, new mandatory minimum sentences, without the possibility for probation or parole, were adopted for drug violations that involved even small amounts of crack cocaine. Conversely, individuals convicted of possession or distribution of considerably larger amounts of powder cocaine were not subject to mandatory minimum sentences. This disparity ended in December 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that federal judges can impose sentences for crack cocaine users that are more in line with those for powder cocaine users. Because the majority of crack offenders are black, this decision eliminates an unintended racial bias embedded in the legislation.

As a part of the Reagan administration's War on Drugs, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 led to substantial increases in the arrests of drug offenders and inadvertently targeted minority offenders for the possession and sale of crack cocaine. New legislation prevented judges from looking at the individual circumstances surrounding the offense when sentencing drug offenders and gave an unparalleled amount of power to federal prosecutors; these changes had devastating effects on minority defendants. Although one of the ultimate goals of the mandatory minimum sentencing legislation within the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was to target the foremost drug traffickers, it was actually the low-level contributors to the drug trade (i.e., street dealers, lookouts) who were most severely penalized. Recent data illustrate that roughly 70 percent of those prosecuted for crack offenses were only involved in this low-level activity within the drug trade.

Although the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was sparked by the crack epidemic, it was actually the death of Len Bias, a promising University of Maryland basketball prodigy, that quickly pushed the new laws through Congress. Bias died of a drug overdose subsequently following his selection in the National Basketball Association draft by the Boston Celtics, which instigated a sensational media campaign focused on the drug crack cocaine, which was erroneously believed to have killed him. Although it was later discovered that it was actually powder cocaine, not crack cocaine, that killed Bias, his death pressed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 into legislation, making it one of the harshest and most controversial drug laws ever enacted.

Bibliography:

1) Angeli, David H. 1997. "A Second Look at Crack Cocaine Sentencing Policies: One More Try for Federal Equal Protection." American Criminal Law Review 34(3):1211-41.

2) Inciardi, James A. and Karen McElrath. 2001. The American Drug Scene. Los Angeles: Roxbury.

3) Musto, David. 1999. The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

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