Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-5904_i4dk.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

Opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J. 

As enacted in 1986, §841(b) created a 100-to-1 ratio be-
tween the amounts of powder and crack cocaine necessary
to trigger the mandatory minimums in §§841(b)(1)(A) and 
(B).  Subparagraph (A)’s 10-year minimum was triggered by
5,000 grams of powder cocaine (about the weight of a gallon 
of paint), but only 50 grams of crack cocaine (about half a
stick  of  butter).  Subparagraph  (B)’s  5-year  minimum  re-
quired  500  grams  of  powder  (heavier  than  a  football)  but 
just five grams of crack (the weight of a nickel). 

The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) incor-
porated the 100-to-1 ratio into the Sentencing Guidelines. 
The Guidelines include a “Drug Quantity Table,” which sets
“base offense level[s]” that correspond to various ranges of
weights  for  each  drug  type.  USSC,  Guidelines  Manual 
§2D1.1  (Nov.  2018)  (USSG).  A  defendant’s  base  offense 
level,  together  with  his  criminal  history,  determines  the 
“Guidelines range” of sentences.  The more drugs possessed,
the higher the base offense level, and the higher the Guide-
lines range.  Because the drug quantity tables are keyed to 
the statutory minimums, selling a given weight of crack co-
caine would lead to the same base offense level as selling 
100 times as much powder cocaine.  Street-level crack deal-
ers  could  thus  receive  significantly  longer  sentences  than 
wholesale importers of powder cocaine.  

Under the 1986 law, crack cocaine sentences were about 
50  percent  longer  than  those  for  powder  cocaine.    USSC, 
Report  to  the  Congress:  Cocaine  and  Federal  Sentencing
Policy 13 (May 2007) (2007 Report).  Black people bore the 
brunt  of  this  disparity.  Around  80  to  90  percent  of  those 
convicted  of  crack  offenses  between  1992  and  2006  were 
Black, while Black people made up only around 30 percent 
of powder cocaine offenders in those same years.  Id., at 16. 
There was no meaningful policy justification for such un-
equal sentences.  The 100-to-1 ratio “rested on assumptions
about the relative harmfulness of the two drugs and the rel-
ative prevalence of certain harmful conduct associated with