Drug trafficking is the second-largest primary offense category in the November 6, 2026 file. Immigration is larger. Of the 66,662 cases in that file, 16,222 — about 24 percent — are drug trafficking. In this lookup, 96.6 percent of sentenced drug trafficking defendants received a prison term. The October 28 export covered 18 labels and 29,655 cases. That subset is no longer the public lookup.
The median sentence, however, is not uniform. Across the 55 jurisdictions in the file, it ranges from under 30 months to over 140 months. All of these defendants were sentenced under the same federal offense category. The median still differs by jurisdiction.
The range
The five jurisdictions with the highest drug trafficking medians in FY2025:
- Iowa: 252 cases, 141-month median
- South Dakota: 116 cases, 132-month median
- Arkansas: 244 cases, 120-month median
- Indiana: 227 cases, 120-month median
- Nebraska: 188 cases, 120-month median
The five with the lowest medians among jurisdictions with at least 50 cases:
- Vermont: 104 cases, 29.5-month median
- Arizona: 494 cases, 30-month median
- California: 1,565 cases, 30-month median
- North Dakota: 136 cases, 44-month median
- Oregon: 240 cases, 45-month median
The Iowa median is 4.7 times the Vermont median. The Iowa median is 4.7 times the California median. Drug type and quantity are part of that spread. The offense page for drug trafficking lists drug type. A blank is not the category Other. How to read a row. These figures are not adjusted for drug mix.
Why medians differ
The guidelines produce a recommended range, not a fixed sentence. Several factors shift where a defendant lands within that range, or below it.
Substantial assistance (§5K1.1). A government motion under §5K1.1 allows the judge to sentence below the guideline range when the defendant provided substantial assistance in another prosecution. In North Dakota, 72.8 percent of drug trafficking defendants received a §5K1.1 motion — the highest share in the file. The North Dakota median is 44 months. In Iowa, 22.6 percent received a §5K1.1 motion; the median is 141 months.
Zero-point offender reduction (Amendment 821). Defendants with no criminal-history points who meet the criteria in §4C1.1 may receive a two-level reduction. In California, 52 percent of drug trafficking defendants received this reduction. In Arizona, 54.5 percent did. In Iowa, 3.2 percent did. The zero-point reduction became effective November 1, 2023. Its application rate varies substantially by jurisdiction.
Case mix. Drug type and drug quantity are part of the guideline range in trafficking cases. The offense page lists drug type for this category. A jurisdiction that prosecutes more high-quantity methamphetamine cases will show higher medians than one with a different mix. That is a description, not a cause.
Guideline adherence. The fraction of defendants sentenced within the guideline range differs by jurisdiction. In the November 6, 2026 file, Iowa is within range 25.4 percent of the time. California is 8.4 percent. An earlier draft of this page said 61.4 and 32.5. Those figures are not in the file. A higher below-range rate can pull the median down even when the calculated ranges are similar.
What is not in this data
The homepage rolls district-level data up to the state level. Texas includes the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas — four districts with different caseloads, different U.S. Attorney offices, and different prosecution patterns. A single state median combines those districts. A district-level export would show more internal variation.
Drug type is not recorded per cell in this file. A state with a predominantly methamphetamine caseload and a state with a predominantly heroin caseload will show different medians for reasons entirely outside the jurisdiction name.
These figures are observational and unadjusted. They are not an evaluation of whether any jurisdiction is sentencing appropriately, harshly, or leniently.
Using the explorer
The explorer shows the drug trafficking cell for any jurisdiction. The detail table includes the §5K1.1 rate, the zero-point offender rate, the within-range share, the plea median, and the trial median. The cross-jurisdiction table at the bottom of the page sorts all 55 jurisdictions by case count for the selected offense, so you can compare them directly.