The Organization and Operation of Illicit Retail Methamphetamine Markets

Abstract

Illicit drug markets vary organizationally and operationally in terms of things like the product being bought and sold, the community and population being served, the people engaged in the business, and the extent to which the market has matured. In this paper we use data from a survey of 1,367 law enforcement agencies to examine the characteristics and dynamics of illicit retail methamphetamine markets in U.S. communities. We describe the characteristics of those markets and we distinguish different types of communities in terms of the characteristics of their local meth markets. Despite finding similarity in the organizational and operational characteristics of methamphetamine markets in the U.S., we found variability in terms of the source of production of meth for the local market (local labs and importing from Mexico and other U.S. states) and the extent to which local police consider meth to be a local problem.