illicit retail methamphetamine markets and related ...

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ILLICIT RETAIL METHAMPHETAMINE MARKETS AND RELATED LOCAL PROBLEMS: A POLICE PERSPECTIVE BRUCE G. TAYLOR, HENRY H. BROWNSTEIN,TIMOTHY M. MULCAHY, DANIEL J. WOODS, JOHANNES FERNANDES-HUESSY, CAROL HAFFORD In this paper we examine whether features of the operation of retail methamphetamine markets affects communities in three domain areas (public safety, health, and economy). We use data from a national survey of law enforcement agencies (n= 1,367) with narcotics officers to examine the operational characteristics of methamphetamine markets. We found that the operational features of a market (the source of methamphetamine and the most common location for selling __________ Bruce G. Taylor is a Principal Research Scientist with NORC at the University of Chicago. He has conducted studies in the areas of policing, technology and officer safety, school violence prevention, violent offenders, victimization, and dynamics of drug markets. He received his doctorate from Rutgers University in 1996. Henry H. Brownstein is Senior Vice President and Director of the Substance Abuse, Mental Health, and Criminal Justice Studies Department at NORC at the University of Chicago. He was formerly with the National Institute of Justice and has written extensively about drug markets and the relationship between drugs and crime and violence. Timothy M. Mulcahy is a Senior Research Scientist and Program Director of the NORC Data Enclave. His research interests include drug markets, drug use patterns, and human trafficking and he has written or co-authored numerous presentations and papers in these areas. He earned his graduate degree from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) at the Johns Hopkins University, conducted his international economics and foreign policy studies at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and earned his Bachelor’s Degree in English from the University of Virginia. Daniel J. Woods is a Research Associate at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF). Prior to joining PERF, he worked as a Research Specialist with the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was primarily responsible for analyzing data from the Reintegrative Shaming Experiments (RISE), conducted in Canberra, Australia. In addition, he collaborated to evaluate the state of Maryland’s Hot Spots Communities program and updated an assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons ban. He received his M.A. in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland and his PhD. in Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. Johannes Fernandes-Huessy is a Research Analyst at NORC at the University of Chicago. He earned his B.A. at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, has studied international finance and statistics at Humboldt University Zu Berlin (Germany), and is working toward his M.A. at American University. Carol Hafford is a Senior Research Scientist with the Economics, Labor, and Population Studies department with NORC at the University of Chicago. As a qualitative researcher, she has conducted studies and evaluations on human service programs for vulnerable children, youth, and families in low-income communities. She received her Ph.D. in applied anthropology from Columbia University and is the daughter of a former NYPD Detective.

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TAYLOR, BROWNSTEIN, MULCAHY, WOODS, FERNANDES-HUESSY, HAFFORD methamphetamine) can have a significant impact on the types of public safety, health, and economic problems that communities are experiencing. In particular, jurisdictions distinguished by largely semi-private markets (strip clubs and bars) are more likely to be characterized as localities that have a large public safety and health problem. Jurisdictions that are supplied by multiple local and international sources (compared to a single source) were more likely to be characterized as jurisdictions that have problems in the three domains.

INTRODUCTION

Most illicit drugs obtained for personal use are acquired through retail markets (Simeone, Rhodes, Hunt, & Truitt, 1997). These markets may be defined as the set of people, facilities, and procedures through which illicit drugs are transferred from sellers or dealers to buyers or users (National Research Council 2001, p. 160). Negative public health, safety, and economic outcomes have been observed among people and communities in relation to their involvement with or proximity to these markets (National Institute of Justice, 2003; National Research Council, 2001). However, there appears to be variation in terms of outcomes as they relate to different drugs and different drug markets. For example, violence related to disputes between dealers has been observed in studies of crack cocaine markets (Brownstein, Baxi, Goldstein, & Ryan, 1992; Goldstein, Brownstein, Ryan, & Bellucci,1989; Reuter, 2001), but not necessarily in studies of marijuana markets (Curtis 1998; Curtis & Wendell, 2002). In particular, it has been suggested that variation in the operation of illicit retail drug markets is related to variation in public health, safety, and economic outcomes in those communities where different markets are located (Berg & Rengifo, 2009; Brownstein & Taylor, 2007a, 2007b; Curtis, R., Friedman, S.R., Neaigus, A. Jose, B., Goldstein, M., & Ildefonso, G., 1995; Harocopos & Hough, 2006; Jacques, 2010; Kerr, Small, & Wood, 2005; May & Hough, 2004). Toward enhancing our understanding of the broader conceptual framework that considers the relationship between community context, the dynamics of particular illicit retail drug markets, and outcome measures of public health and safety and the local economy, this paper focuses on how variation in drug market characteristics are related to varying community outcomes. Specifically, we examine the relationship between the operation of different types of illicit methamphetamine markets and police perspectives of public health, safety, and economic outcomes in U.S. communities. While retail markets for illicit drugs operate outside of the law, they do not operate independent of the social and economic forces that serve as the operational context for all commercial transactions (Brownstein 2000; Johnson, Hamid, & Sanabria, 1992; Reuter, MacCoun, & Murphey, 1990). As economic markets, they typically are characterized by rapid turnover in participants, an overlap of buyers and sellers, and a large variation in price and quality within a narrow geographic 328

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area (Reuter, 2001). Historically they have tended to be clustered geographically in inner city and socially disorganized neighborhoods (Forsyth, Hammersley, Lavalle, & Murray, 1992; Olligschlaeger, 1997). However, variation in the structural and in interpersonal characteristics of illicit drug markets has been observed (Brownstein & Taylor, 2007a; Taylor & Brownstein, 2003), particularly in terms of the drug being exchanged (Johnson et al., 1992). Methamphetamine is interesting because its markets appear to be organized differently than traditional illicit drug markets (McKetin, McLaren, & Kelly, 2005), and there is evidence that meth markets are found in rural as well as urban areas (Herz, 2000; Weisheit & White, 2009). RETAIL DRUG MARKETS AS ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THEIR COMMUNITY

Illicit retail drug markets are economic markets and participants in these markets do engage in commercial transactions; however, the illegal nature of these businesses mean that they operate in the shadows hidden from or overlooked by law enforcement and in the margins where tax accountants cannot tally (Brownstein, Crimmins, & Spunt, 2000, p. 224). Nonetheless, as sociological phenomena illicit drug markets are social organizations. In the simplest sense a social organization is a collectivity with a “primacy of orientation to the attainment of a specific goal,” (Parsons 1956a, p. 64). That goal is defined in relation to the relevant aspects of the larger social environment or context of which it is part and has some impact on that environment or context (Parsons 1956a, 1956b). In terms of illicit retail drug markets, they are collectivities with the specific goal of transferring a particular substance or substances from sellers to buyers when that substance is deemed not to have a legitimate purpose in the surrounding community. As economic markets for the exchange of an illicit substance or substances, these retail drug markets by their very being are a disturbance to the legitimate order of the community. As social organizations they should operate in an orderly manner such that participants could view their relationship to the community in a less negative or even positive way. That is, participants in an illicit drug market (as a social organization) should adhere to institutionalized (even if not legitimate) patterns of behavior designed to maximize their chances of attaining their goal of transferring a product (illicit drugs) from seller to buyer. Theoretically, then, market participants would primarily be oriented to the goal of successful and profitable drug transactions and not necessarily to any form of community disruption. To the extent that illicit retail drug markets are social organizations their impact on their local community should not necessarily be a problem. If, as organizations, the markets are well organized and stable and operate through established and enduring social relationships then their impact on the community should be comparable to that of any other commercial market in the community. Certainly the substance of their trade may itself be a source of social harm or personal injury, or both. Substance SUMMER 2011

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use may very well be damaging to the lives of users and their families, for example. However, in this analysis our focus is not the substance but rather the market. In its own right, a well organized illicit retail drug market as a social organization, which is part of a community, does not necessarily have to be a problem for its surrounding community or for the people who live there. As noted earlier, research has found negative community outcomes related to the existence of illicit drug markets in their community (National Institute of Justice 2003; National Research Council 2001). But perhaps these negatives outcomes are a product of the operation of local markets rather than the presence of a market itself. Do the characteristics of the illicit drug markets within the context of a community result in other forms of disorder within the community? In this paper we address the question of how the operation of illicit retail methamphetamine markets in a community are related to public health, public safety, and local economic outcomes. There has not been as much attention in the research literature to the relationship between drug markets and community outcomes as there has been to drug use and users and such outcomes (National Institute of Justice, 2003), but there has been some. In terms of such a relationship, there have been studies of market economy focusing on markets as a way that local people support themselves (Levitt & Venkatesh, 2000; Reuter, MacCoun, & Murphy, 1990) and ethnographic studies of particular communities describing a group of community people whose lives intercept with the local market (Adler, 1993; Bourgois, 1995; Curtis et al., 1995; Hughes, 1977; Jacobs, 1999; Maher, 2000; Mieczkowski, 1990, 1992; Murphy et al., 2005; Venkatesh, 2008). A growing number of studies have looked more directly at community outcomes, such as the safety issue of violent crime or the health issue of HIV (Altschuler & Brounstein, 1991; Bellair & McNulty, 2009; Berg & Regnifo, 2009; Bourgois, 1995; Dembo et al., 1990; Fagan, 1989; Fagan & Chin, 1990; Fendrich et al., 1995; Heffernan, Martin, & Romano, 1982; Hughes, 1977; Kingery, Pruitt, & Hurley, 1992; Li, Stanton, & Feigelman, 1999; Ousey & Lee, 2007; Saner, MacCoun, & Reuter, 1995; Scott & Wright, 2008; Taniguchi, Rengert, & McCord, 2009; Zahn, 1980). Some attention has been paid directly to drug market operations as it relates to community safety or health (Brownstein, 1996; Brownstein et al., 1992; Brownstein & Taylor, 2007; Goldstein et al., 1989, 1992; Golub & Johnson, 1997; Jacques, 2010; Johnson et al., 1992; Lattimore et al., 1997; Pettiway, 1995; Taylor & Brownstein, 2003). One problem for studies like these is that it is not easy to conceptualize markets in terms that acknowledge and represent the operational dimensions of the market (see Brownstein, Crimmins, & Spunt, 2000). For example, one recent study of the mediating role of illicit drug market dynamics in the relationship between community-level informal social control mechanisms and robbery conceptualized 330



market dynamics simply as the number of residents in a neighborhood (i.e., on a block) who responded in the affirmative to questions about the frequency of drug dealing and drug use in their neighborhood (Berg & Rengifo, 2009). Another problem for these studies is that even when illicit drug market dynamics can be conceptualized it is difficult to identify and measure dimensions of market operations. Existing beyond the boundaries of law, the drug industry is not regulated as are legitimate industries and drug businesses are not subject to the same requirements as legitimate businesses. Consequently there are no formal reporting requirements so transactions are not routinely recorded and no standard source of data exists with which to analyze market activity or market trends.1 Any effort to construct measures of market operations is challenging, but not impossible (see Brownstein & Taylor, 2007a). In this paper we examine whether communities with illicit methamphetamine markets that operate in varying ways have the same or different impacts on public safety and health and the local economy in their surrounding community. Our focus as noted earlier is on police perceptions about the markets and about these outcomes, so we use data from a survey of law enforcement agencies in U.S. cities and counties. METHOD: DATA COLLECTION, MEASURES, AND ANALYSIS

The research for this paper is part of a larger study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) on the dynamics of methamphetamine markets, including a survey of law enforcement agencies, detailed phone interviews with a subsample of survey participants and case studies. For the survey, our sample frame of law enforcement agencies was developed from the 2007 National Directory of Law Enforcement Administrators (NDLEA) database of the National Public Safety Information Bureau (NPSIB). The NDLEA is a comprehensive listing of law enforcement agencies in the U.S. It includes the name and type of the agency, some descriptive information about the agency (e.g., number of officers), and relevant contact information. For our sample frame we included data from 15,917 agencies representing four NDLEA segments: municipal police departments and independent city sheriffs; county police and sheriff’s departments; State Police/Highway Patrol Headquarters; and State Criminal Investigation Headquarters. We assigned these departments to 27 different strata that were based on the nine Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) regions of the National Drug Intelligence Center and three levels of urbanicity using county designations as metropolitan urban, micropolitan urban, or rural. Within each stratum, the allocated sample was selected systematically with probability proportional to agency size (including a disproportionate number of larger agencies), where size is measured as the number of municipal and county police officers/sheriffs per agency. SUMMER 2011

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Of the 15,917 law enforcement agencies, a representative national sample of 4,389 agencies was selected. Our final sample included 1,367 agencies (about onethird of the 4,389 selected agencies) representing all 50 states of the U.S. all of which demonstrated knowledge of the extent to which methamphetamine was or was not being marketed and was or was not considered problematic in their community.2 The survey was sent to each agency with a cover letter from both NORC at the University of Chicago and the Police Executive Research Forum, requesting that it be completed by a narcotics investigator or other designee who is “the most knowledgeable about meth and its impact on the agency and community.” In each case the selected respondent was a representative of his or her agency (generally a narcotics officer/detective) who from his or her position had knowledge of and experience with methamphetamine use, distribution, and/or manufacture within their jurisdiction and from their position all of them had something to say about the extent to which methamphetamine did or did not have an impact on their community. The respondent in each agency received a seven-page questionnaire asking questions about their jurisdiction in terms of: methamphetamine use; the existence, circumstances, and characteristics of local markets; the source of local meth (e.g., local labs, importing); where it is sold; whether or not it is related to local health or safety problems and the local economy; and the organization and operation of local markets relative to patterns of buying, selling, production, and use. Each agency was given the option to respond by mail, fax, or via a secure website at a designated location. To maximize our response rate using multi-survey modes, we implemented the survey using a modified Dillman (2007) approach including a respondent-friendly questionnaire, up to five contacts with recipients of the survey, a brief pre-notice letter sent a few days prior to the arrival of the questionnaire, a questionnaire mailing that includes a detailed cover letter, a thank you/reminder postcard, a replacement questionnaire, and a final contact by fax or telephone. Social actors interpret and understand their social life in the context of their own experience and interests (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Participants in illicit retail drug markets have different social roles and locations in the market so have different experience with and different interests in the market. For our purpose the police perspective is particularly useful given the responsibility of the police for addressing problems associated with market activity. Respondents were asked a series of specific questions about their knowledge and understanding of how markets operated, including where drugs are sold and the source for the drugs. Measures of illicit retail drug market operations can be constructed indirectly from the records of agencies that respond to market activity (such as law enforcement, courts, drug treatment agencies) or informally from communications directly with market participants or by observation of 332



market activity. For this analysis we use measures of market operations based on communication with survey respondents who had personal involvement with the local meth markets. In terms of the impact on the surrounding community, respondents were asked to estimate the extent to which meth was associated with problems related to public health, public safety, and the local economy on a six-point scale based on the following descriptions: “no impact,” “very small impact,” “small impact,” “moderate impact,” “large impact,” or “very large impact.” These measures of community outcomes are specifically related to the views of local law enforcement. As noted earlier, while we do recognize the limitations of a single perspective we believe that (given the role of the police in the community in relation to illicit drug markets) their perspective is of particular value.3 For this analysis our measures of community outcomes are based on the score assigned by local police respondents in terms of the extent to which meth is considered by them to be a local problem of public health, public safety, and local economy. FINDINGS UNIVARIATE FINDINGS

The focus of our analysis is on the extent to which local law enforcement considers methamphetamine to be a problem of for the jurisdiction’s public health system, public safety system, or a problem for the local economy. In Table 14 we present the mean score for each category of problem as reported by our police respondents.5 On a scale of 1 to 6, all three categories (of public health, public safety, or a problem for the local economy) have an average rating at the “small impact” level (mean of about 3); meaning on average law enforcement personnel in our sample are rating meth as having a small impact on average across public health, economy, and safety issues. More specifically, about half of the sample believes that meth is having either a small, very small or no impact across all three categories (health= 50.3%, economy= 63.2%, and public safety= 48.1%). However, of concern is that the other half of the sample believes that meth is having either at least a “moderate,” “large,” or “very large” impact across the three problem areas. The largest percentage across all three categories is “moderate,” and public health and public safety are seen as a “large” or “very large” problem by almost 30% of the sample (local economy is about 15% for the same measure). Our basic research question examines the operation of meth markets and how it affects whether the police rate meth as having a greater or lesser affect on the three domain areas of public health, public safety and the local economy. We explore two market operation variables, including where meth was predominately sold and the source of the meth for the locality. Our question on the sales venue for meth included SUMMER 2011

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TAYLOR, BROWNSTEIN, MULCAHY, WOODS, FERNANDES-HUESSY, HAFFORD TABLE 1. MEAN SCORES FOR EACH CATEGORY OF PROBLEM

the following response options: strip clubs, bars, abandoned buildings, private homes/ apartments, streets, public buildings, cars, and other. For the purposes of statistical modeling (see later models) we grouped these options into four categories (see Table 2 below): private locales (abandoned buildings, private homes/apartments), semi- private locales (strip clubs and bars), public locales (streets, public buildings, and cars), and no meth markets.6 The most common venue was private and public locales (at almost one-third of all meth sales each) and the least common was for semi-private sales (16.4%). Our survey item on the source of meth included the following options: locally produced/home-cooked, imported from Mexico, imported from another country other than Mexico, and imported from another U.S. State. Based on the distribution of our data, we coded the source items into five categories for the purposes of our later regression models: market characterized by 1) three sources (local/home cooked, imported from Mexico, and imported from somewhere else [either another U.S. State or another country]), 2) local/home cooked and imported from Mexico, 3) local/home cooked and imported from other state/country (other than Mexico), 4) local/home cooked only, and 5) no presence of meth in locality or any other market combination (representing only a very percentage of the cases). As seen in Table 3 (where we show more than the five categories used in the regression models), the most common source (29%) was having a mix of local (home cooked—also known as “Mom and Pop labs”), imported from Mexico, and imported from another state/ country. The next most common source (after no local meth market) was a mix of local (home cooked/ Mom and Pop labs) and imported from Mexico (16.7%) and then local only (9.9%). The least common was a source of Mexican imports only 334


ILLICIT RETAIL METHAMPHETAMINE MARKETS TABLE 2. THE PREDOMINANT LOCATION FOR METH SALES IN THE JURISDICTION

(3.3%). From Table 3, it can also be seen that meth markets were not found in 24.7% of the jurisdictions in our study.7 We also added two other control variables in our later multivariate models including the size of the jurisdiction population and the percentage of drug arrests involving meth. We included these last two variables to help control for some of the variation we have in our sample of agencies. That is, we had a mix of agencies from very small (under 5,000 residents) (13.5%), small (5,001 to 50,000 residents) (45.1%), medium (50,001 to 100,000 residents) (17.6%), large (100,001 to 500,000 residents) (16.4%), and very large (greater than 500,000 residents) (7.5%) jurisdictions. Our average jurisdiction was 300,599 residents (median= 36,465 residents). We also had a mix of agencies where meth-involved offenses represent more than half of their drug arrests (9%), 23 to 50% of their drug arrests (16%), 5

TABLE 3. THE SOURCE OF METH FOR THE JURISDICTION

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to 22% of their drug arrests (25%), 1 to 4% of their drug arrests (22%), or none of their drug arrests (28%). The average percentage of meth-involved drug arrests was 15% (median= 4% and range from 0 to 100). MULTIVARIATE MODELS

Below we present our results for three multinomial logistic regressions for public safety problems, public health problems and problems with the local economy. The outcome categories were coded into no problem (the reference category), small problem, moderate problem, and large problem. Each of the regressions has three sets of coefficients. The first set is for the log-odds of the law enforcement respondent characterizing the impact of methamphetamine on the local jurisdiction in the areas of public safety, public health problems and local economy as a small problem compared to no problem. The second set is moderate problem compared to no problem, and the final set is for large problem vs. no problem. In the text we focus on the large problem compared to no problem results because it represents the extreme of the scale, presents the most unambiguous results, and is our main area of interest (i.e., there are factors that help explain why some jurisdictions are rated as having more severe meth related problems compared to no problems). Following each model, we present graphs of the profile results indicated by the probability of being in each category. We included agencies that reported no meth markets in their jurisdiction in our statistical models as an interesting comparison group. While no meth market may exist in a jurisdiction, residents from such a city might obtain their meth from markets outside their jurisdiction and ultimately exhibit problems in their hometowns that negatively impact their community (e.g., local health system) or they might commit crimes in their hometowns to support their meth use. Our study will assess whether jurisdictions with meth markets are having more community problems with meth than jurisdictions without meth markets. In some ways it might seem obvious that a community with local meth markets would be much worse off than a community that has no meth markets (but has residents who travel to other places to get their meth), but this is an empirical question and one that we explore in this paper. Table 4, the Public Safety Model, indicates that there are a number of statistically significant variables. In particular, the model on “large problem compared to no problems” revealed five statistically significant variables. First, law enforcement agencies (LEAs) where meth represents a higher percentage of their arrests (odds ratio= 1.18) are 18% more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public safety problem compared to agencies where meth represents a lower percentage of their arrests. Jurisdictions described as having meth markets compared to no meth markets (whether private markets [odds ratio= 3.22], semi-private markets [odds ratio= 6.34], or public markets [odds ratio= 2.44) are more likely to 336



be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public safety problem compared to no problem. In particular, jurisdictions where semi-private markets (where meth is sold in strip clubs and bars) are the most dominant were the most likely (534% more likely) to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public safety problem compared to the overall average meth market. The source of supply for a local meth market is also a significant factor. Jurisdictions with all three sources (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad sources or other states) were the most likely (225% more likely) to be characterized as a place that has a large public safety problem compared to the average meth market. Table 4 provides us with coefficients that assess the impact of each explanatory variable on the relative risk of a jurisdiction being characterized as having a small, moderate or large public safety problem compared to no problem. However, for illustrative purposes we can determine the probability of our outcomes utilizing the following formula for each outcome:

We present our illustration in Figure 1. Initially, we have set continuous measures (population size and percent meth arrests) to their mean value, while setting categorical measures to their modal response. For our illustration we focus on a community with a population of 358,000, 18% of their arrests involve meth, are dominated by private sales (abandoned buildings and private homes/apartments), and have all three type of sources of meth (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad/other states sources). Based on these values, the jurisdiction has a 51.7% probability of being characterized as a locality with a large public safety problem. If the market were characterized by mostly semi-private sales (instead of private sales as in the above illustration) the probability of a market being characterized as having a large public safety problem rises from 51.7% to 58% (based on calculations not shown on the graphs but using the above formula). If the market were made of mostly local sources of meth (“Mom and Pop” markets) the probability decreases from 51.7% to 35%. Also, if the percentage of arrests involving meth were twice as high at 36% (instead of 18% as in the illustration) the probability rises substantially from 51.7% to 68.7%, but if the population value were doubled (from 358,000 to 716,000) the probability only rises slightly from 51.7% to 53%. Table 5, the Public Health Model, indicates that there are a number of statistically significant variables. In particular, the model on “large problem compared to no problems” revealed five statistically significant variables. First, LEAs where meth represents a higher percentage of their arrests (odds ratio= 1.14) are 14% more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem SUMMER 2011

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TAYLOR, BROWNSTEIN, MULCAHY, WOODS, FERNANDES-HUESSY, HAFFORD TABLE 4. NOMINAL LOGISTIC REGRESSION FOR PUBLIC SAFETY PROBLEM (N=950)

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ILLICIT RETAIL METHAMPHETAMINE MARKETS FIGURE 1. PREDICTION PROFILER FOR PUBLIC SAFETY PROBLEM

compared to no problem than agencies where meth represents a lower percentage of their arrests. Jurisdictions where semi-private markets (where meth is sold in strip clubs and bars) are the most dominant were the most likely (odds ratio= 10.16 or 916% more likely) to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem compared to an average meth market. The source of supply for a local meth market is also a significant factor. Jurisdictions with mixed markets such as local and Mexican (odds ratio= 8.5) and all three sources (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad sources or other states) (odds ratio= 3.01) were the most likely (750% more likely for local and Mexican and 201% more likely for all three sources) to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem compared to an average meth market. Also, markets dominated mostly by local (“Mom and Pop”) homegrown markets are 62% (odds ratio= 0.38) less likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem compared to an average meth market. To provide a more intuitive understanding of our public health findings we now turn to Figure 2 to assess the probability of having a large public health problem given a variety of starting positions for the variables in our model. As before, initially, we have set continuous measures (population size and percent meth arrests) to their mean value, while setting categorical measures to their modal response. For our SUMMER 2011

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TAYLOR, BROWNSTEIN, MULCAHY, WOODS, FERNANDES-HUESSY, HAFFORD TABLE 5. NOMINAL LOGISTIC REGRESSION FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM (N=944)

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illustration we focus on a community with a population of 359,000, 18% of their arrests involve meth, are dominated by private sales (abandoned buildings and private homes/apartments), and have all three type of sources of meth (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad/other states sources). Based on these values, the jurisdiction has a 44.4% probability of being characterized as a locality with a large public health problem. If the market were characterized by mostly semi-private sales (instead of private sales as in Figure 2) the probability goes up slightly from 44.4% to 46.1% (based on the earlier stated formula). If the market were made of mostly local sources of meth (“Mom and Pop” markets) the probability decreases considerably from 44.4% to 32.5%. Also, if the percentage of arrests involving meth were twice as high at 36% (instead of 18% as in the illustration) the probability rises substantially from 44.4% to 59.1%, but if the population value were doubled (from 358,000 to 716,000) the probability only rises slightly from 44.4% to 45.2%. Table 6, the Local Economy Problems Model, has a number of statistically significant independent variables. In particular, the model on “large problem compared to no problems” revealed four statistically significant variables. First, LEAs where meth represents a higher percentage of their arrests (odds ratio= 1.07) are 7% more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large local economy problem related to meth compared to no problem than agencies where meth represents a lower percentage of their arrests. Jurisdictions where meth is FIGURE 2. PREDICTION PROFILER FOR PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM

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dominated by sales in private settings (where meth is sold in private homes or abandoned buildings) were the most likely (odds ratio= 3.05 or 205% more likely) to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large local economy problem related to meth compared to an average meth market. The source of supply for a local meth market is also a significant factor. Jurisdictions with mixed markets such as local and Mexican (odds ratio= 4.38) and all three sources (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad sources or other states) (odds ratio= 2.88) were the most likely (338% more likely for local and Mexican and 188% more likely for all three sources) to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large local economy problem related to meth compared to an average meth market. Once again, to provide a more intuitive understanding of our local economy findings we now turn to Figure 3 to assess the probability of having a large local economy problem related to meth given a variety of starting positions for the variables in our model. As before, initially, we have set continuous measures (population size and percent meth arrests) to their mean value, while setting categorical measures to their modal response. For our illustration we focus on a community with a population of 358,000, 18% of their arrests involve meth, are dominated by private sales (abandoned buildings and private homes/apartments), and have all three types of sources of meth (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad/other states sources). Based on these values, the jurisdiction has a 24.4% probability of being characterized as a locality with a large local economy problem related to meth. If the market were characterized by mostly semi-private sales (instead of private sales) the probability goes down from 24.4% to 19 % (based on the earlier stated formula). If the market were made of mostly local sources of meth (“Mom and Pop” markets) the probability decreases considerably from 24.4% to 12.3%. Also, if the percentage of arrests involving meth were twice as high at 36% (instead of 18% as in the illustration) the probability rises fairly substantially from 24.4% to 33.7%, but if the population value were doubled (from 358,000 to 716,000) the probability stays about the same from 24.4% to 24.8%.

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ILLICIT RETAIL METHAMPHETAMINE MARKETS TABLE 6. NOMINAL LOGISTIC REGRESSION FOR LOCAL ECONOMIC PROBLEMS (N=943)

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TAYLOR, BROWNSTEIN, MULCAHY, WOODS, FERNANDES-HUESSY, HAFFORD FIGURE 3. PREDICTION PROFILER FOR LOCAL ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

DISCUSSION

It has been recognized for some time that local drug markets differ in terms of how they operate. They vary by type of drug being bought and sold, the source of those drugs, region of the country where they are located, venue for sale in the community, and so on (Fagan, 1989; Murphy, Sales, Duterte, & Jacinto, 2005; Taylor & Brownstein, 2003). Our main question in this paper is whether the operation of meth markets, in communities across the U.S., affects whether meth is having a greater or lesser affect on three domain areas related to public safety, health, and the local economy. We explored two market operation variables, including where meth was predominately sold (private, semi- private, public or other locales) and the source of the meth for the locality (locally produced/home-cooked, imported from Mexico, imported from another country other than Mexico, and imported from another U.S. State). We also added two other control variables in our three multinomial logistic regression models, including the size of the jurisdiction population and the percentage of drug arrests involving meth. First, we explored the extent to which law enforcement considers local illicit retail meth markets to be a public health problem, public safety problem, or a problem for the local economy. For most jurisdictions in our sample, law enforcement personnel on average rate meth as having a small impact on public safety, health, and economy 344



issues. However, we noted that almost a third of our sample believes that meth is having a “large” or “very large” impact on public health and public safety (local economy is about 15% for the same measure). Our multivariate models revealed that jurisdictions where semi-private markets (strip clubs and bars) are the most dominant were the most likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public safety problem (534% more likely) and a large public health problem (916% more likely) compared to the overall average meth market. Also, jurisdictions where meth is dominated by sales in private settings (private homes or abandoned buildings) were the most likely (205% more likely) to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large local economy problem related to meth compared to an average meth market. Jurisdictions with all three sources (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad sources or other states) were the most likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public safety problem (225% more likely), a large public health problem (201% more likely), and a large local economy problem (188% more likely) compared to the average meth market. Also, jurisdictions with two of those three sources (local and Mexican) were also more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem (750% more likely) and a large local economy problem (338% more likely) compared to an average meth market. Conversely, markets dominated mostly by only local (“Mom and Pop”) homegrown markets are 62% less likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem compared to an average meth market. Our multivariate models revealed that LEAs where meth represents a higher percentage of their arrests are more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has large public safety (18% more likely), health (14% more likely) and local economy (7% more likely) problems compared to no problems than agencies where meth represents a lower percentage of their arrests. The finding that agencies that make a higher percentage of arrests for meth also view the problems associated with meth as being more serious is not too surprising. In fact, we were surprised that the effects were not greater. That is, even if the percentage of drug arrests for meth is not a very high percentage the community can still experience significant meth related problems. Looking at the percentage of drug arrests for meth alone will therefore not help explain some of the large variations in meth related problems that we observed across our sample. Also, our other control variable population size of jurisdiction was not statistically significant in any of our models, suggesting that the size of the jurisdiction does not relate to an officer’s rating of the meth problem in their locality. An examination of our meth market profile data reveals that the average meth market in our sample8 has 52% probability of being characterized as one having a large public safety problem, 44% for public health, and 24% for local economy. SUMMER 2011

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However, these probabilities are raised substantially if the percentage of arrests involving meth were twice as high as the average jurisdiction (the probability raises from 52% to 69% for public safety, 44% to 59% for public health, and 24% to 34% for local economy). Also, these probabilities are raised somewhat for public safety (52% to 58%) and public health (44% to 46%) if the market were made up of mostly semi-private sales, but go down (from 24% to 19%) for local economy problems if the market were made up of mostly semi-private sales. Also, for markets made up of mostly local sources of meth (“Mom and Pop” markets) the probability of a public safety (52% to 35%), public health (44% to 33%) and local economy (24% to 12%) concern being rated as a large problem decreases substantially. In all of these models, the size of the jurisdictions population does not alter its probabilities very much. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

We recognize that our data has some limitations. First, there is the issue of our reliance on the knowledge of local law enforcement to characterize the clandestine world of meth markets in their jurisdictions. We recognize that for any social agent the knowledge and perspective of local police is a product of their social position and experience (see Ryan, Goldstein, Brownstein, & Bellucci, 1990). Just as one can question the reliability and validity of data collected from drug addicts (who may be inebriated during an interview or be motivated to complete the interview to receive a cash incentive and provide unreliable data) and sellers (who may not want to be truthful about revealing elements of the drug markets for fear of reprisal from other dealers or fear that the information may become known by the police), one can question the accuracy of surveys with narcotics enforcement personnel. However, we do believe that surveys of police of drug markets do have value. While the police are not direct participants in the actual exchange of drugs, they do have a role in these markets. The police not only shape these markets through their interdiction activities, but it is their job to understand the dynamics of these markets so they can disrupt them in meaningful ways. The police represent a common institution in all communities that has a vested interest in knowing where to locate illicit drug markets and knowing something about how they are organized and how they operate as well as the impact they have. Also, our study does not rely on extant police data. We collected our data in a more targeted way than examining simple traditional tallies of drug crimes from extant police data. We are not aware of any other published work that has collected market-level data from law enforcement in a similar way. We believe this is an important and overlooked source of data. Given the multiple players involved in drug markets, there are different perspectives that need to be captured. In the field of measurement, knowledge often has different sources. The police provide another, 346



perhaps equally or more relevant, perspective. The police perspective is also likely to be broader than any one drug user or seller’s perspective and not limited to a particular block or neighborhood. Law enforcement’s perspective on drug markets is also more likely to be informed by known facts (e.g., lab reports on the purity of drugs), as opposed to supposition. Another concern with our data is our modest response rate of about one-third of a national sample of 4,389 agencies. We believe that our response rate was somewhat low due to the fact that meth markets are not well represented in all communities across the U.S. (see Office of Applied Studies, 2006 and www.methresources. gov/use.html). That is, for many agencies they do not have a meth problem and they might not have seen much relevancy in the survey. In fact, our response rate was somewhat better in regions that are generally associated with higher rates of meth use (e.g., the Southwest, West central, and Pacific regions of the U.S. were all around a 40% response rate) and lower in areas not associated with meth use (the New York/New Jersey region and New England region were closer to a 25% response rate). However, other than some regional differences in our response rate (which we addressed through statistical weighting of our sample) we did not observe a pattern to our non-response based on data for all 4,389 selected agencies and feel that our data provides a reasonable representation of law enforcement in the U.S. We also observed a diversity of responses to our survey questions, suggesting that we also had a diverse sample of agencies in our study. The goal of our sampling approach was to include a rich variety of markets in our study to assure that we captured the diversity of meth markets in the U.S, and despite our low response rate (which we address through statistical weighting) we believe we have achieved that goal. Lastly, we ended up with over 1,300 completed agency-level surveys, providing a statistically large sample to explore our research questions with a high level of statistical power. CONCLUDING COMMENTS

The damaging effects of meth to an individual’s health (Thompson, Hayashi, & Simon, 2004) and the social harm to families and related social institutions from meth is well documented (Sommers, Baskin, & Baskin-Sommers, 2006; and see Sommers, & Baskin, 2004). In our study we focused not on the harm associated with the actual consumption of meth but rather on the markets that have emerged to sell meth. Our study is one of the few to develop measures of market operations, and use an innovative approach of grounding our work in the perceptions of over a thousand narcotics law enforcement personnel from across the U.S. regarding these markets. Our data support the proposition that the operational features of a market can have a significant impact on the types of public safety, health, and economic SUMMER 2011

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problems that communities may experience with meth. For example, we learned that it makes a difference in terms of community safety, health, and economics whether the source of meth is from one single source (e.g., local “mom and pop” operations) or from multiple sources and where the market was based in a community. One of the striking results of our study is the large effect sizes we detected. Our data suggest that the operation of a meth market can have a major affect on the nature of the problems experienced by a locality across public safety, health, and economic areas. Jurisdictions characterized by largely semi-private markets (strip clubs and bars) are 534% more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public safety problem and 916% more likely as a large public health problem compared to the overall average meth market. While these semiprivate markets were the least common type of markets (only 16.4% of the meth markets in our sample were characterized as semi-private), they appear to be the most problematic. These results are important and suggest that where the markets are organized enough to sell meth in semi-private venues there are going to be substantially more problems. Whereas drugs such as crack cocaine were known for their public distribution networks and associated violence in these public venues, we see a particular problem with semi-private settings for meth. These semi-private settings are likely to require less strong social ties or personal relationships (see Granovetter, 1973 for a discussion on the role of social ties) between the sellers and users to connect in these locations compared to the less problematic private settings. Semi-private settings may be less regulated and more open than the more closed private markets. Perhaps the weaker ties means that sellers and buyers are more likely to experience conflict during their transactions and do not have strong personal relationships to fall back on, resulting in problems being more likely to escalate into violence. The semi-private markets may be more unstable due to the presence of a greater number of exchanges among acquaintances or strangers which leads to less trust and predictability in the market and more problems. As the meth markets in a community begin to move out of private settings and into more semiprivate sale venues, communities will need to be equipped to address the likely problems that will come with these operational features. Also, of concern are the large problems associated with markets supplied by a mix of sources. Jurisdictions with all three sources (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad sources or other states) were about 200% more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public safety, health, and local economy problems compared to the average meth market. Also, jurisdictions with two of those three sources (local and Mexican) were even more likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem (750% more likely) and a large local economy problem (338% more likely) compared to an average meth market. 348



These data suggest that when the supply of meth for a jurisdiction comes from multiple sources that major problems can emerge. Perhaps conflicts emerge across the different suppliers competing in these markets and this creates instability such as turf battles (which could lead to more crime) and inconsistent quality problems (which could lead to health problems for the users). Interestingly, when markets are dominated mostly by only local (“Mom and Pop”) homegrown markets they are 62% less likely to be characterized as a jurisdiction that has a large public health problem compared to an average meth market. In recent years we have seen an increasing attempt by law enforcement to shut down the “Mom and Pop” type local meth markets, and there has been a steady increase in the introduction of laws limiting access to over-the counter pseudoephedrine (used in the production of meth). However, these efforts may have the unanticipated effect of advancing the capabilities of Mexican meth suppliers in the U.S. by hampering the efforts of local and other meth suppliers. In effect, these efforts could have unexpectedly led to even greater problems for localities, especially if the Mexican suppliers are sharing the market with local and other meth suppliers. We believe our results provide some direction for future research on meth markets. First, above we discussed the particular problems associated with meth sales in semi-private settings. We need more research to uncover the nature of the relationships between the buyers and sellers in these and other types of meth markets. For example, is there a significant overlap between the individuals who sell and buy meth (i.e., are many of the sellers also meth users themselves and work at cultivating relationships with other users and sellers to advance their addiction to meth)? While we have speculated about the nature of these relationships, more data is needed to confirm our ideas in this area. Such data could provide insights into why these semi-private markets are so problematic. Second, earlier we recognized some of the concerns with relying on narcotics officers to report on meth markets. One way to address this concern is for future researchers to use multiple sources of data in a single study. For example, surveys by narcotic officers could be augmented with data collection with meth buyers and sellers (the data collection would likely need to involve more qualitative collection for it would to be hard to collect representative data across the U.S. from meth sellers and buyers who probably are not in stable enough residences to be in a national survey). Third, there is a need for comparative research between the operation of meth markets and other drug markets (e.g., marijuana, crack, and heroin markets). Questions to be addressed include the following: How do the operation of these other markets compare to meth market operations and is there a similar relationship between the operation of these various markets and community problems? For

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law enforcement it would also be helpful to assess whether there are lessons from combating those other markets that can be applied to meth markets. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank Bethany Deeds of NIDA and Yonette Thomas, formerly of NIDA now at Howard University, for their encouragement and support. This article was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, The Dynamics of Methamphetamine Markets: A Systematic Approach to Process, Grant Number 1R21DA024391-01. The opinions and points of view of the authors are theirs alone and do not reflect or represent the position of NIDA, NORC at the University of Chicago, or the Police Executive Research Forum. NOTES 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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One interesting exception was the time that sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh was conducting an ethnographic study of a drug gang in Chicago and was given records of transactions as they were recorded by a member of the gang (Venkatesh, 2008). He shared these with economist Steven Levitt and together they produced a rare analysis of the economic organization of a particular drug selling business (Levitt & Venkatesh, 2000). They found that while selling drugs may have been slightly more lucrative for an individual compared to what the same individual might have earned in legitimate employment, for all but those at the highest levels of the organization the risks of participation offset any wage premium. An analysis comparing respondents (n= 1,367) to non-respondents (n= 3,022) on the number of officers in the agency and available 2000 U.S. census data revealed no substantively important differences between the respondents and non-respondents. In a later phase of this study we do explore other qualitative perspectives of meth market operations and views of the nature and extent of their impact on local problems of safety and health from meth users in treatment centers and drug prevention personnel. Still, we believe that the perspective of police, who have legal authority and responsibility in the community to respond to the markets and their participants, is important in its own right. Our survey question for this item was worded in the following way: “To what extent has meth had an impact on public safety, public health, and the local economy in your jurisdiction?” We have left those agencies with no meth markets in our analysis because members of the agency’s community may be purchasing their meth from outside the jurisdiction (perhaps where it is easier to purchase) but can still be creating problems in those jurisdictions that are observable or otherwise known JOURNAL OF DRUG ISSUES


6.

7.

8.

by narcotics officers. In fact, some jurisdictions may develop meth markets to support meth users that are traveling outside their jurisdiction to purchase meth. For example, a sign that a community may start developing meth markets is that they start observing small numbers of meth addicts that are creating problems for their public health system. While some of the respondents noted that the venue of meth sales occurred in an “other” location, those “other” locations were never rated as the dominant sales venue. Because of more missing data on the survey item that was used to assemble Table 2, a fairly common problem in survey research, our estimate of the number of jurisdictions without methamphetamine markets differ somewhat from Table 3 (24.7% to 20%). Our estimate of 24.7% from Table 3 is based on fewer missing data and is likely a more reliable estimate. That is, a community with a population of 358,000, 18% of their arrests involve meth, a meth market dominated by private sales (abandoned buildings and private homes/apartments), and a meth market having three sources of meth (Mexico, local “Mom and Pop,” and other abroad/other states sources).

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