While signs indicate that Congress may significantly decrease the crack/powder setencing disparity for cocaine possession, federal judges are not waiting for a legislative solution.
U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis became the latest to effectively negate the disparity by exercising judicial discretion in sentencing. Davis' opinion in the case of U.S. v. Greer is the first in the Eastern District of Texas to announce that, from this point forward, at least one judge there will treat possession of crack and powder cocaine as criminally equivalent.
Under the federal sentencing guidelines currently in place, a sentence for possessing crack cocaine is treated 100 times more severely than possession of the same amount of powder cocaine. The disparity has been widely panned for its disproportionate impact on people of color.
In discarding the sentencing guidelines, Judge Davis relied upon Kimbrough v. U.S. and Spears v. U.S., two recent Supreme Court decisions that, taken cumulatively, expressly invite federal judges to reject the disparity.
The Senate Judiciary Committee 
"This action ... reflects the clear sea change taking place, both domestically and especially internationally, regarding drug policy," writes Glenn Greenwald at