The 100-to-1 ratio does not mean that prison sentences for crack are 100 times longer than those for powder. Rather, the ratio relates to the amount of drug that triggers mandatory minimum sentences. For example, selling 5 grams of crack carries a mandatory minimum of five years, but it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger the same five-year minimum. [William E. Smith] said the 100-to-1 ratio results in sentences three to six times longer for crack.

Smith said he recently sentenced a major cocaine dealer, Shawn Montegio, to 188 months for the same crime that [Joshua J. Perry] was convicted of, except the drug was powder cocaine. While Perry was caught with 29.47 grams of crack, Montegio had 10 kilograms of powder cocaine. "Without doubt, Montegio was a far more serious criminal drug trafficker and a far more serious threat to the community than Perry," Smith wrote. "Yet the guidelines treat them as equivalent. This cannot be justified in any principled way."

While the Sentencing Commission's 2002 report called for narrowing crack/powder disparity, it also acknowledged that "differences in intrinsic harms" associated with crack justified punishing crack offenses more severely than powder cocaine offenses, prosecutors wrote. For example, data compiled by the commission and the Justice Department bore out the conclusion that crack is generally more addictive than powder cocaine, the legal brief stated.