Smoke vs. mirrors

I've mentioned before that liberals get bent out of shape over the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences -- they point out that there's no "scientific" reason for this and blame racism, but in fact the reason crack is more heavily punished is because, at the time the laws passed, the crack cocaine trade was much more violent than the powder cocaine trade was.

In Reason, Jacob Sullum avoids the racism! reflex for the most part, but here's how he explains it:

Two decades after fear of a new drug fad drove Congress to establish draconian crack sentences...

Fear of a new drug fad? I think it would be more accurately called the fact of an extremely violent drug fad.

There's evidence that modern crack dealing and use causes less crime, so maybe we should bring the two closer to parity (and for that matter, I'm all for ending the drug war entirely), but the original laws were quite reasonable given the circumstances.