Obama passed a new crack cocaine law but why does this law not apply to people who have been?

Because those people have already been tried and sentenced.

Congress passed it (not Obama, although he supported it and signed it). Cocaine and crack cocaine are the same drug and it never made sense to have a disparity in the penalties applied to both. Under prior law, possession of 5 grams of crack would get you a 5 year mandatory sentence.It would take possession of 500 grams of cocaine to get you the same sentence.

The law is not retroactive because Congress decided it did not want to revisit those old cases. I agree that prior law was unfairly applied but I can see the justification for not reopening the door to the punishments that have already been meted out. Even though there was a sentencing disparity under prior law, people knew that (or should have known) when they broke the law.

There you have the answer. Why waste taxpayer dollars? Who knows which law will be "reintroduced".

Maybe the idea behind the wheel is that, now that they are pretty much legal, maybe there will be less crime.

Regardless of demo/repub, they were elected in.

Lostdogrwd-right on, this country will do anything to jail a brother!

The old law was made to lock up blacks for crack cocaine if way cheaper and mostly poor people ( mostly blacks) do the drug while cocaine which is mix with baking soda to make crack is for people who can afford it ,, it was a pure and simple a racist law to put more black in prison to make jobs. There never should had been a 10 to 1 difference in time for the dope. And addict need help not time in a prison but time in a recovery home some were.

And it do apply to people who have been previously convicted and still in prison.

The US constitution prohibits laws being applied to actions committed before the passage of the new law.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.