Garland’s memo to the nation’s U.S. attorneys directs prosecutors to charge “pertinent statutory quantities that apply to powder cocaine” when pursuing crack cases and to “advocate for a sentence consistent with powder cocaine rather than crack cocaine.”The move, long sought by civil rights advocates, comes as the Equal Act, a bill that would eliminate the disparity, has been stalled in the Senate amid objections from some Republicans after it passed in the House last year with bipartisan support.Garland’s memo cited Justice Department testimony last year to the Senate Judiciary Committee that sentencing disparities are “simply not supported by science, as there are no significant pharmacological differences between the drugs: they are two forms of the same drug, with powder readily convertible into crack cocaine.”During his confirmation hearing in February 2021, Garland told Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a co-sponsor of the Equal Act, that the inequitable sentencing in crack and powder cocaine cases had a “disparate impact on communities of color.”“There’s no justification for this, and we should end this,” Garland said at the time.But both of those are bad problems, [and] equalizing penalties for crack and powder should have no difference with respect to our ability to fight violent crime.”Garland aides said the new guidelines, which will take effect within 30 days, are part of a broader set of changes the attorney general is making to the Justice Department’s charging policies.Though the group has opposed eliminating the sentencing disparity in the past and it did not take a position on the Equal Act, Pasco said the police union’s views have evolved “as there’s been more clarity around the science.”Pasco said that the Biden administration has supported police with additional resources to fight a rise in violent crime and that the union does not believe the policy changes on cocaine sentencing will adversely affect the efforts of law enforcement.Unlike the Equal Act, however, that bill would achieve greater parity in part by increasing penalties for powder cocaine users."