President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into law Tuesday which narrows the sentencing gap between those caught with crack verses powered cocaine.
Now, people caught with crack cocaine will face shorter prison sentences.
The majority of crack offenses are committed by African Americans, but whites commit the majority of cocaine offenses.
Supporters of the new law argue blacks had been subjected to longer prison sentences than whites. Many in the Christian community, including the National Association of Evangelicals, supported the new law.
"The particle impact has been the long term imprisonment of an African American population, so it had a racial disparity to it as well," Galen Carey, the Director of Government Affairs for the NAE, said. "So the reform that was passed, the Fair Sentencing Act, helps bring that more into balance."
Opponents of the law argued that reducing the penalties for crack sends the wrong message to drug dealers and will ultimately increase drug activity in communities.