The vast majority of federal sentences for marijuana crimes went to Hispanics last year, according to new data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

Hispanics were massively overrepresented with 77 percent of federal marijuana sentences, despite making up less than 20 percent of the U.S. population.

Non-Hispanic whites were dramatically underrepresented, with 11.9 percent of pot sentences, and African-Americans were also underrepresented with 8.3 percent.

Hispanics long have gone to federal prison for pot crimes at a higher rate, but the group’s share of sentences has increased amid an overall dip as states unfurl regulated markets.

Steven Nelson for USN&WR/U.S. Sentencing Commission

Federal charges often – but not always – indicate enterprise-level activity outside of state cannabis laws.

Most marijuana arrests do not result in federal charges and are instead prosecuted locally. About 643,000 pot arrests were made in 2015, the most recent year for which FBI data is available.

There were 3,528 federal marijuana sentences in fiscal 2016, with an average penalty of 28 months in prison, according to the sentencing commission, which released the annual statistics Monday.

Federal marijuana charges aren’t necessarily reserved for the worst of the worst, with each case presenting a unique set of facts and in some instances reflecting the priorities of the local U.S. attorney.

Three of the 421 whites sentenced federally in fiscal 2016, for example, were medical marijuana growers in eastern Washington who had slightly exceeded state limits on collective gardens.

Although Washington state allows recreational pot sales, anti-marijuana federal prosecutors targeted the so-called “Kettle Falls Five” with a raft of serious charges. Family patriarch Larry Harvey was excused from the case because of terminal cancer, but a family friend accepted a plea deal and in the first month of fiscal 2016 his widow, stepson, stepdaughter-in-law were sentenced to prison.

Eight states and the nation’s capital now have abolished criminal penalties for pot possession – and more than half allow the drug's medical use – but possession for almost any reason remains a federal crime.

Steven Nelson for USN&WR/U.S. Sentencing Commission

It's unclear what exactly explains the growing demographic gap in federal charges.

The trend may be explained in part by international drug organizations claiming a bigger footprint in a shrinking black market – though leaning against that theory is the fact marijuana seized at the Mexican border is plummeting.

Other explanations could include minorities having a tougher time transitioning from the unregulated to state-licensed industry. Although the white share of federal pot sentences has declined, the black share has hardly budged.

State laws typically have a legal residency and clean-record requirements for licensees, and blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have criminal records from pot arrests, and blacks from arrests in general – though each group self-reports similar drug use rates.

Jesce Horton, chairman of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, says the latest federal sentencing statistics are “a sad representation of the racial targeting that has fueled the war on drugs, of which cannabis prohibition played a major role.”

Horton, a state-legal businessman in Oregon’s cannabis industry, says the disproportionate criminal enforcement has created a “comfort gap” and other barriers to entering regulated markets, which the association seeks to bridge.

“This reality has certainly played a large role in the lack of involvement among people of color in the cannabis industry,” he says. “Many are shell shocked by the fear of being targeted and dealing with generational repercussions of a criminal record.”

Although the racial divide in federal marijuana sentences has grown recently, other drug categories have stark and relatively stable racial splits.

Steven Nelson for USN&WR/U.S. Sentencing Commission

About 80 percent of crack cocaine sentences have gone to African-Americans every year for the past decade.

A long-term drug sentence decline for blacks largely reflects fewer crack cocaine sentences – from 4,528 in 2007 to 1,305 in 2016.

Roughly 40 to 50 percent of federal methamphetamine sentences, meanwhile, have gone to whites and to Hispanics.

Methamphetamine was the most common substance for federal drug sentences last year. Heroin sentences have also seen a multiyear increase.

Hispanics have consistently received a slightly majority of powder cocaine sentences and in recent years a narrow plurality of heroin sentences, while whites almost always receive the most sentences for other drugs.

