What weight of meth is federal trafficking?

| by Max Soni

Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group. We’re a second-generation law firm managed by Todd Spodek – who has many, many years of experience as a criminal defense attorney. Our team has over 40 years of combined experience handling federal cases, and we’ve represented clients in situations others thought were unwinnable. You might know us from the Netflix series about our client Anna Delvey, or from our work on the Ghislaine Maxwell juror misconduct case. If you’re reading this, you’re probably facing a federal methamphetamine charge – or worried you might be soon.

The answer to “what weight is federal trafficking” is deceptively simple on paper but brutal in practice. Five grams of actual methamphetamine triggers federal trafficking charges with a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence. Fifty grams of actual meth gets you ten years minimum. But the reality is messier than those numbers suggest, and understanding the difference between “actual” and “mixture” could mean years of your life.

Federal prosecutors charge methamphetamine trafficking under 21 U.S.C. § 841, and the statute creates two sentencing tiers based on weight. The lower tier starts at 5 grams of pure methamphetamine or 50 grams of a mixture containing methamphetamine – that’s a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, up to 40 years maximum. The upper tier starts at 50 grams of pure meth or 500 grams of mixture – ten years mandatory minimum, up to life in prison. If death or serious bodily injury results from the drugs, those minimums jump to 20 years.

Those weight thresholds sound straightforward until you realize federal law treats “actual methamphetamine” and “methamphetamine mixture” completely differently. It takes ten times as much mixture to trigger the same mandatory minimum as pure meth. This distinction matters enormously – except in 2025, the distinction has become almost meaningless in practice.

The United States Sentencing Commission published data in 2024 showing that methamphetamine purity has skyrocketed across the board. The meth tested in fiscal year 2022 averaged over 90% pure regardless of whether prosecutors charged it as mixture or actual. The median purity was 98%. The original theory behind the 10-to-1 ratio was that purity indicated role in the drug trade – higher purity meant closer to the source, more culpability. That theory is dead.

This creates bizarre sentencing disparities based on geography and prosecutorial discretion. Border districts tested drugs 86.4% of the time, while non-border districts tested only 71.2% of the time. If you’re in a district that doesn’t test, prosecutors charge based on mixture weight. Federal judges sentenced people for methamphetamine mixture to an average of 83 months. Actual methamphetamine averaged 93 months. Ice averaged 103 months. Those differences exist even though the purity levels are statistically indistinguishable.

The mandatory minimums are just the floor. Federal sentencing guidelines calculate a sentencing range based on drug quantity, your criminal history, whether you accepted responsibility, whether you cooperated with investigators, and dozens of other factors. After United States v. Booker in 2005, the guidelines became advisory rather than mandatory. Judges can vary from the guideline range – but they rarely go below the mandatory minimum unless you qualify for specific statutory exceptions.

The safety valve is the most important exception. It allows judges to sentence below the mandatory minimum if you meet specific criteria. Before the First Step Act in 2018, only defendants with zero or one criminal history point qualified. The First Step Act expanded eligibility – you can now qualify if you don’t have more than four criminal history points (excluding one-point offenses) and don’t have a prior three-point offense. You also can’t have used violence or a weapon, can’t have caused death or serious injury, can’t have been a leader or organizer, and you must truthfully provide all information about the offense to the government.

In the first year after the First Step Act, 41.8% of drug trafficking offenders with mandatory minimums received safety valve relief, compared to 35.7% in fiscal year 2018. But in March 2024, the Supreme Court decided Pulsifer v. United States, which narrowed who qualifies. The decision contracts the universe of defendants who can get relief – though the exact impact is still unfolding in the lower courts.

Substantial assistance is another route around mandatory minimums. If you cooperate with federal investigators and prosecutors – providing information that leads to other prosecutions – the government can file a motion asking the judge to sentence below the mandatory minimum. This is entirely within prosecutorial discretion. If the government doesn’t file the motion, the judge can’t grant a below-minimum sentence based on cooperation no matter how helpful you were.

Prior convictions escalate everything. If you have one prior conviction for a serious drug felony or serious violent felony, the five-year mandatory minimum becomes 10 years, and the ten-year minimum becomes 20 years. Two or more prior serious drug or violent felonies? The five-year becomes 15 years, and the ten-year becomes 25 years to life.

Five grams of methamphetamine is about a teaspoon. Fifty grams is less than two ounces. These are small amounts – amounts that sound like personal use to most people. But federal law doesn’t care. Possession of five grams with intent to distribute is trafficking with a five-year mandatory minimum. The government doesn’t need to prove you sold drugs to anyone. They just need to prove you possessed the meth and intended to distribute it – and they’ll use packaging, scales, cash, text messages, or your own statements to establish that intent.

If you’re arrested with methamphetamine, everything you say will be used to calculate drug quantity and establish distribution intent. “I’ve been selling for six months” gives prosecutors a timeframe to estimate total drug quantity. “I was holding it for someone else” is still possession. Federal defendants routinely increase their own sentences by talking to agents without a lawyer.

The worst mistake is thinking you can explain your way out of a federal meth charge. Federal agents are professionals – they’ve heard every explanation, every excuse, every attempt to minimize. They tell you cooperation will help – and it might, but only if it’s structured through a formal proffer agreement negotiated by your lawyer. Anything you say without a cooperation agreement can and will be used against you.

At Spodek Law Group, we’ve handled federal drug trafficking cases for decades – we understand how prosecutors build these cases and where the vulnerabilities are. Former federal prosecutors on our team know the government’s playbook. We’ve secured safety valve relief for clients who barely qualified. We’ve negotiated substantial assistance agreements that reduced mandatory minimums to time served. We’ve challenged drug weight calculations, lab testing procedures, and Fourth Amendment violations that led to suppression of evidence.

Our firm is available 24/7 because federal arrests don’t wait for business hours. If you’re arrested on a federal meth charge, invoke your right to counsel immediately and call us. We’ve represented clients from coast to coast through our digital portal system – you don’t need to be in New York to work with us. We’ve been featured in the New York Post, Newsweek, Bloomberg, and Business Insider, and we’ve built our reputation by winning cases others thought were impossible.