I 
113TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3088 
To concentrate Federal resources aimed at the prosecution of drug offenses 
on those offenses that are major. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 12, 2013 
Ms. WATERS (for herself, Mr. ELLISON, Mr. LEWIS, Ms. NORTON, Ms. 
BROWN of Florida, Mr. RUSH, Mr. CA´RDENAS, Mr. CARSON of Indiana, 
Mr. COHEN, Mr. QUIGLEY, Mr. PAYNE, and Ms. JACKSON LEE) intro-
duced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Ju-
diciary, and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for 
a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the com-
mittee concerned 
A BILL 
To concentrate Federal resources aimed at the prosecution 
of drug offenses on those offenses that are major. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Major Drug Traf-
ficking Prosecution Act of 2013’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings: 
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(1) Mandatory minimum sentences are statu-
torily prescribed terms of imprisonment that auto-
matically attach upon conviction of certain criminal 
conduct, usually pertaining to drug or firearm of-
fenses. Absent very narrow criteria for relief, a sen-
tencing judge is powerless to mandate a term of im-
prisonment below the mandatory minimum. Manda-
tory minimum sentences for drug offenses rely solely 
upon the weight of the substance as a proxy for the 
degree of involvement of a defendant’s role. 
(2) In the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, and 
at the height of the public outcry over crack cocaine, 
Congress acted hastily, without sufficient hearings, 
and enacted hard line penalties that targeted low- 
level drug offenders. These penalties included new, 
long mandatory minimum sentences for such offend-
ers. 
(3) According to the Bureau of Prisons, in 
1986, when the new drug law containing lengthy 
mandatory minimum sentences passed, the prison 
population was 36,000. Today, the Federal prison 
population is over 215,000 prisoners, up almost 600 
percent in 26 years. 
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(4) According to the Bureau of Prisons, the 
cost to keep one prisoner in Federal prison for one 
year is approximately $26,000. 
(5) According to the Department of Justice, 
since the enactment of mandatory minimum sen-
tencing for drug users, the Federal Bureau of Pris-
ons budget increased from $994 million in 1987 to 
almost $6.2 billion in 2009. 
(6) According to the U.S. Sentencing Commis-
sion, between 1995 and 2010, over 400,000 drug of-
fenders were sentenced under Federal law; of these, 
almost 250,000 (61 percent) received mandatory 
minimum sentences. 
(7) According to the U.S. Sentencing Commis-
sion, drug offenders released from prison in 1986 
who had been sentenced before the adoption of man-
datory sentences and sentencing guidelines had 
served an average of 22 months in prison. In 2010, 
almost two-thirds of all drug offenders received a 
mandatory sentence, with most receiving a 10-year 
minimum. Most of these offenders are nonviolent or 
lower-level offenders with little or no criminal his-
tory: in 2010, 51.6 percent had few or no prior con-
victions, 83.6 percent did not have weapons involved 
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in their offense, and only 6 percent were considered 
leaders, managers, or supervisors of drug operations. 
(8) Mandatory minimum sentences have con-
sistently been shown to have a disproportionate im-
pact on African-Americans. The United States Sen-
tencing Commission, in a 15-year overview of the 
Federal sentencing system, concluded that ‘‘manda-
tory penalty statutes are used inconsistently’’ and 
disproportionately affect African-American defend-
ants. African-American drug defendants are 20 per-
cent more likely to be sentenced to prison than 
White drug defendants. 
(9) According to the U.S. Sentencing Commis-
sion, between 1994 and 2003, the average time 
served by African-Americans for a drug offense in-
creased by 62 percent, compared to a 17 percent in-
crease among White drug defendants. 
(10) According to the Substance Abuse and 
Mental Health Services Administration, government 
surveys document that drug use is roughly con-
sistent across racial and ethnic groups. While there 
is less data available regarding drug sellers, research 
from the Office of National Drug Control Policy and 
the National Institute of Justice has found that 
drug users generally buy drugs from someone of 
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their own racial or ethnic background. But, accord-
ing to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, over 70 per-
cent of all Federal narcotics offenders sentenced 
each year are African-Americans and Hispanic 
Americans, many of whom are low-level offenders. 
(11) As a result of Federal prosecutors’ focus 
on low-level drug offenders, the overwhelming major-
ity of individuals subject to the heightened crack co-
caine penalties are African-American. According to 
the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s 2007 Report to 
Congress on crack cocaine, only 8.8 percent of Fed-
eral crack cocaine convictions were imposed on 
White Americans, while 81.8 percent and 8.4 per-
cent were imposed on African-American and His-
panics, respectively. 
(12) According to the U.S. Census, African- 
Americans comprise 12 percent of the U.S. popu-
lation and, according to the Substance Abuse and 
Mental Health Services Administration, about 10 
percent of all drug users, but almost 30 percent of 
all Federal drug convictions according to the U.S. 
Sentencing Commission. 
(13) According to the U.S. Sentencing Commis-
sion, African-Americans, on average, now serve al-
most as much time in Federal prison for a drug of-
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fense (58.7 months) as Whites do for a violent of-
fense (61.7 months). 
(14) According to the U.S. Sentencing Commis-
sion, in 2010, almost 30 percent of women entering 
Federal prison did so for a drug offense. Linking 
drug quantity with punishment severity has had a 
particularly profound impact on women, who are 
more likely to play peripheral roles in a drug enter-
prise than men. However, because prosecutors can 
attach drug quantities to an individual regardless of 
the level of a defendant’s participation in the 
charged offense, women have been exposed to in-
creasingly punitive sentences to incarceration. 
(15) Low-level and mid-level drug offenders can 
be adequately prosecuted by the States and punished 
or supervised in treatment as appropriate. 
(16) The Departments of Justice, Treasury, 
and Homeland Security are the agencies with the 
greatest capacity to investigate, prosecute and dis-
mantle the highest level of drug trafficking organiza-
tions. Low-level drug offender investigations and 
prosecutions divert Federal personnel and resources 
from prosecuting high-level traffickers. 
(17) Congress must have the most current in-
formation on the number of prosecutions of high- 
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