What happened
The bill moved through Congress within weeks of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias's fatal overdose in June 1986, amid magazine and television coverage claiming crack was uniquely, instantly addictive — claims that had no real scientific basis and were substantially abandoned by the same outlets within a few years.
The law that resulted set a 10-year mandatory minimum for 50 grams of crack or 5 kilograms of powder cocaine, and a 5-year minimum for 5 grams of crack or 500 grams of powder — a 100:1 ratio with no pharmacological justification, since crack and powder cocaine are chemically almost identical once they reach the bloodstream. Crack was cheaper and more prevalent in poorer, disproportionately Black communities; powder was more common among wealthier and disproportionately white users.
The effect on sentencing outcomes was immediate and measurable. Before the 1986 mandatory minimums, the average federal drug sentence for Black defendants was 11% longer than for white defendants. Four years later it was 49% longer. By 2009, 79% of convicted crack offenders were Black. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the ratio to 18:1, implicitly conceding the original 100:1 figure had never been defensible — but it took 24 years, and did nothing to shorten sentences already served under the old law.