Beyond the Federal Drug War: A Panel Study of State-Level Powder and Crack Cocaine Laws, 1977–2010

Scholars claim that more punitive drug laws are one of the main reasons for the rapid growth of U.S. incarceration rates and related collateral consequences over recent decades. Yet despite the widespread impact of these laws, researchers continue to ignore a seemingly fundamental research question: Why do some states, but not others, enact harsher drug laws? To partly address this gap in the literature I locate the social, political, and economic factors responsible for changes in the severity of U.S. state-level powder and crack cocaine laws from 1977 to 2010. Two-way fixed-effects panel estimates reveal that theoretical accounts based on racial threat, partisan politics, and gendered politics largely explain variation in cocaine law strength within states over this period.