Timothy M. Mulcahy

The Organization and Operation of Illicit Retail Methamphetamine Markets

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.

Home Cooking: Marketing Meth

Making and selling methamphetamine is a business of personal ties. Henry H. Brownstein, Timothy M. Mulcahy, Bruce G. Taylor, Johannes Fernandes-Huessy, and Carol Hafford provide a nuanced understanding of meth markets, from mom-and-pop to import markets.

Illicit Retail Methamphetamine Markets and Related Local Problems: A Police Perspective

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 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.

The Characteristics of Methamphetamine Markets and Their Impact on Communities

Using a national sample of state and local law enforcement agencies, we collected survey data about local methamphetamine (meth) markets and related problems, in terms of public safety, health, and the local economy, from narcotic officers in these agencies. Our hypotheses related to the importance of the structural and interactional organization of meth markets for assessing their impact on the community; the salience of market instability and its potential for leading to more uncertainty for meth buyers, more market conflict, and related community problems; and the relevance of the types of characteristics of the market (e.g., the presence of import or locally supplied meth markets, general market criminality, and use of technology by the market participants) to community public safety, health, and economic problems. The authors found that markets characterized by both imports and locally produced meth are associated with higher levels of problems compared to local-only markets but import-only markets are associated with fewer problems. Meth markets characterized by more criminal activity and greater use of technology by the market participants are significantly associated with higher levels of community problems but market instability and interactional organization were not significant. Also, the market’s structural organization was related to community problems.