Through this research project I focus on the less studied Section 115 of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which implemented eligibility requirements aimed at combatting drug use by people on the welfare rolls. By specifically excluding people with felony drug convictions, the drug felony lifetime ban is an empirical example of the convergence of the welfare and penal systems. In this study, I utilize a dataset compiled from various secondary data sources available online to create a longitudinal dataset focusing on state-level characteristics from 1997 through 2010. I examine states adoption of the ban by using multilevel logistic regression modeling. As expected, I find that state political ideology, racial composition, and incarceration rates have significant associations with the implementation of the drug felony lifetime ban. Contrary to expectations, I find that states with higher female drug crime rates are less likely to implement the ban.