The Methamphetamine Industry in America: Transnational Cartels and Local Entrepreneurs

The Methamphetamine Industry in America

Critical Issues in Crime and Society

Raymond J. Michalowski, Series Editor

Critical Issues in Crime and Society is oriented toward critical analysis of contemporary problems in crime and justice. The series is open to a broad range of topics including specific types of crime, wrongful behavior by economically or politically powerful actors, controversies over justice system practices, and issues related to the intersection of identity, crime, and justice. It is committed to offering thoughtful works that will be accessible to scholars and professional criminologists, general readers, and students.

For a list of titles in the series, see the last page of the book.

The Methamphetamine Industry in America

TRANSNATIONAL CARTELS AND LOCAL ENTREPRENEURS

Henry H. Brownstein,

Timothy M. Mulcahy,

and Johannes Huessy

Rutgers University Press

New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London

Library of Congress Cataloging–in–Publication Data

Brownstein, Henry H.

The methamphetamine industry in America / Henry H. Brownstein, Timothy M. Mulcahy, Johannes Huessy

pages cm.—(Critical issues in crime and society)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8135-6984-0 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-8135-6986-4 (e-book)

1. Methamphetamine abuse—United States. 2. Drug abuse--Social aspects—United States. 3. Drug control—United States. 4. Drug control—Mexico. I. Mulcahy, Timothy M., 1968–II. Huessy, Johannes, 1982–III. Title.

HV5822.M38B76 2014

363.450973—dc23

2013040664

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2014 by Henry H. Brownstein, Timothy M. Mulcahy, and Johannes Huessy

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

Visit our website: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu

Henry H. Brownstein

To my wife Cindy, for being there and understanding me

Timothy M. Mulcahy

To my daughter Reilly and son Brendan,

stay true to the dreams of thy youth

Johannes Huessy

For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Understanding Methamphetamine Markets as an Industry

Chapter 2. Methamphetamine in America

Chapter 3. Social Activity in the Methamphetamine Industry

Chapter 4. Social Relationships in the Methamphetamine Industry

Chapter 5. The Culture of the Methamphetamine Industry

Chapter 6. Meth Markets and the Methamphetamine Industry in the United States

Appendix: The Study of the Dynamics of Methamphetamine Markets

References

Index

About the Authors

Preface

This book tells the story of how the illicit methamphetamine industry in America survived and even thrived despite efforts to control it by legislation and law enforcement. It is based on a study of methamphetamine markets all across the United States and tells the story of those markets from the perspective and in the words of people whose lives have been personally linked to these markets in one way or another. In addition it draws on our years of combined experience studying illicit drugs, drug users, and drug markets.

For four years from 2007 to 2011 we studied methamphetamine markets with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA, R21DA024391). Our study was part of a research initiative supported by NIDA and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). We conducted a mixed methods, three-stage study starting with an exploratory screening survey of 1,367 police agencies across the country, followed by open-ended and in-depth telephone interviews with fifty narcotics police in departments around the country, and finally site visits for observations and personal interviews in and around almost thirty cities and towns in five regions of the country. We concluded that the methamphetamine industry in America is strong and adaptable and in the twenty-first century is not only surviving but thriving. This does not diminish our observation while visiting communities with active methamphetamine markets that while business is good its impact on public health and public safety is not. Notably, we found that while federal and state legislation designed to address meth-related problems initially did inconvenience the markets and marketers of meth, it also had unintended outcomes including the revitalization and reorganization of what was previously a more localized yet fragmented industry.

This book provides a broad perspective through which we present the story of what we learned about methamphetamine as an industry. However, our story is not told from the perspective of industrial economics, describing business techniques used to produce or market products or the details of practices designed to maximize revenue and profits. Nor is it told from the public health perspective, describing how the use of methamphetamine affects the health and well-being of the people who use it and the people around them. And it is not told from the perspective of law enforcement, concerned with how to control the use of an illegal substance and other crimes that might or might not be the work of people who use or deal in that substance. Rather this book looks at methamphetamine markets and the methamphetamine industry from a sociological perspective, viewing them through the eyes and words of the people who participate in them and explores the ways they live their lives among other people in the shadow of methamphetamine use and transactions.

As a sociological analysis of methamphetamine markets and the methamphetamine industry in America, this book views the markets and the industry as social organizations comprised of people. The focus is on those people and how their actions and behavior form social patterns as they interact with each other and relate to one another in a culturally defined context. This is not to diminish the importance of understanding and explaining methamphetamine markets or the methamphetamine industry in economic terms or the impact of the drug and its use and production and distribution on people or communities. It is just another way to look at things that sheds new light on our understanding of and appreciation for the significance and impacts of the markets and the industry, a way that has not received much attention before. In this book we demonstrate the importance of understanding methamphetamine, and by extension other drugs, in society at the broadest level through a sociological lens that focuses on the structure of social activity and behavior, social interaction and social relationships, and cultural elements that shape the organization and operation of a nationwide methamphetamine industry and its realization through regional and local markets. The focus is on the experiences of people as members of society and communities who participate in or are affected by their own actions and behavior and that of others around them who participate in the world of methamphetamine.

Acknowledgments

As noted earlier, this book is based on four years of research conducted from 2007 through 2011. The work was a study called the Dynamics of Methamphetamine Markets and was funded in part by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Additional support was made available by our employer, NORC at the University of Chicago. Funding from the NORC Center for Excellence in Survey Research (CESR) provided partial support for the preparation of this manuscript. The funding from NIDA was part of a collaborative effort between NIDA and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) called the Joint Initiative for Research on Retail Drug Markets.

Without the support of NIDA and without the efforts and determination of Yonette Thomas, who was then the Branch Chief of the Epidemiology Research Branch in the Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research at NIDA, it would not have been possible to conduct this research. We are grateful to Yonette, who left NIDA to become the Associate Vice President for Research Compliance at Howard University in Washington, DC. Bethany Deeds subsequently took over as our NIDA Project Officer and played a major role not only in helping keep the project moving forward but also in helping to keep our work focused and on track. At NORC we thank Dan Gaylin, Eric Goplerud, Chet Bowie, and especially Dan Kasprzyk, who heads CESR, for their encouragement and support.

During the period of the research we wrote several papers and gave several presentations. In addition to the papers presented at professional association meetings, we also presented findings and ideas to meetings of the Joint NIDA-NIJ Initiative and to various federal government agencies. We thank Linda Truitt at NIJ, who organized the NIDA-NIJ Initiative meetings. We also thank Michael Cala and Terry Zobeck at the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Gam Rose at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and David Levin, formerly at DEA.

We three were involved in doing this research including planning and writing the proposal, fielding the survey, conducting interviews, visiting sites, and analyzing data and writing reports and papers from the beginning to the end and beyond. However, a number of other colleagues and associates worked with us at various points and they all made critical contributions to the research. We want to thank Carol Hafford, Susan Martin, Dan Woods, Bruce Kubu, and Kathleen Parks. In particular we want to thank Phyllis Newton, who worked with us at NORC when we were designing the study and writing the proposal. We also give special thanks to Bruce Taylor, who contributed a great deal at the early stages when we were designing the study when he was Research Director at the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) and later (when he joined us at NORC) to analyzing survey data, joining us on a few site visits, and writing papers and articles. Also, while we were in the Midwest visiting sites Ralph Weisheit, a professor at Illinois State University who studies methamphetamine users and markets, joined us at a few sites and we thank him for his contribution.

During the first year of the research we held a meeting of an Advisory Panel to help guide our study. They gave us a number of good ideas, including the suggestion to collect more data from the survey than we had originally planned. We thank the members of that panel including Bruce Bellamy (Division Commander, Metro Patrol Division, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department), Cindy Burke (San Diego Regional Planning Agency, Criminal Justice Research Division), Kelly Damphousse (University of Oklahoma), Rick Harwood (then at the Lewin Group), Denise Herz (California State University at Los Angeles), Toni Krupski (University of Washington), Jane Maxwell (University of Texas), Tom Mieczkowski (University of South Florida), Kevin O’Sullivan (Commander, St. Louis Police Department), and Diane Wiscarson (Diane Frost Wiscarson, PC).

We thank Ray Michalowski, an Arizona Regents’ Professor at Northern Arizona University and Series Editor of the series of which this book is part, Critical Issues in Crime and Society. We also thank, again, Tom Mieczkowski, a professor at the University of South Florida. They both read an early draft of this book and gave us very useful comments that helped make the book better. And we give special thanks to Peter Mickulas, our editor at Rutgers University Press. From the very beginning he saw the value in what we had done and what we wanted to do. As we wrote he provided us with guidance and support through which the book progressed from a long academic essay to a thought-provoking and compelling narrative that tells the fascinating story of how the methamphetamine industry in America evolved at the start of the twenty-first century. This would be a different and less interesting book without his guidance. We also thank John Raymond for copyediting what we thought was the final version of our book and making it more readable. And we thank Carrie Hudak for helping us turn a manuscript into a book.

We thank Jesse Hambrick Jr., sergeant in charge of the Drug and Gang Prevention Unit of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department in Georgia, for the cover photo, but more than that we are grateful to him for introducing us to so many people involved with methamphetamine and for teaching us so much about the methamphetamine business. In the end, our greatest thanks go to all the people all over America who shared their time and stories with us. That includes all of the 1,367 people who responded to our survey, the fifty people who told us the story of methamphetamine in their jurisdiction and shared an Internet connection with us during our telephone interviews, and the hundreds of people who spoke to us in and around almost thirty cities, towns, and rural communities in five regions of the country. As much as we would like to we cannot name them. But while we respect the confidentiality of their identities we cannot thank them enough for their contribution to this work. It is an understatement to say that without them this book would not be possible.

While we thank everyone for their help and support, we take full responsibility for what we wrote. Opinions and points of view herein are ours alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any other individual or organization, including NORC, NIDA, and NIJ or any of the many gracious regional, state, and local law enforcement, public health, family service, drug treatment, and other community agencies and people that participated in our study.

Chapter 1

Understanding Methamphetamine Markets as an Industry

Galax is located in Virginia just north of the border with North Carolina and just south of the Great Appalachian Valley. It sits about twenty-five hundred feet above sea level at the gateway to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Summers are mild and humid and winters can be cold and snowy. Every August the people of Galax celebrate the largest Old Time Bluegrass Fiddler’s Convention and that, along with many other music and craft festivals and conventions, makes the city the World Capital of Old Time Mountain Music. People from all over the world visit Galax and the surrounding area to enjoy the music and dance, to compete for prizes, to explore the scenic countryside, and to wander through the quaint downtown shops.

Galax was incorporated as a town in 1906 just after the Norfolk and Western Railway extended a spur to the area, and then separated itself from surrounding Grayson and Carroll Counties during the 1950s. According to a centennial history written by Brian Funk, the editor of the Gazette in Galax, with the arrival of the railroad Galax emerged as a center for the manufacturing of furniture, textiles, and hardwood flooring. For decades the furniture industry thrived in the area until the national, regional, and local economy began to decline and eventually only one furniture factory remained. With the closing of the factories came the loss of jobs and growing rates of unemployment. A place cannot survive as a viable community in the absence of work that people can do to earn a living, so as one industry moves away another needs to take its place. Galax has managed to endure and arguably prosper by embracing its musical and artistic heritage and building a thriving tourist industry.

According to the 2010 Census the population of Galax is 7,042 people, an increase of 3 percent since the last census in 2000 (City of Galax, Virginia 2013). The median household income in 2009 in Galax was $21,744, compared to $59,330 in Virginia, and the median home value in the city was $84,132 compared to $252,600 in the state. Among those who are counted in the census, the proportion of people living in Galax who are foreign born is slightly higher than the statewide proportion (8.6 percent compared to 8.1 percent), with most of those reportedly coming from Latin America. The proportion of the local population that is Hispanic exceeds the proportion in the rest of the state. In 2012 unemployment in the city was 8.1 percent compared to 5.7 percent statewide.

During a visit to Galax and the surrounding area in the summer of 2011 we found good people who were hard working and cared about taking care of themselves, their families, and their community. The problem is that while tourism does create jobs and produce income it is not the only lucrative activity to have taken root in the area. In the early twenty-first century in rural, southern Virginia, as global manufacturing industry has fled not only tourism but the international methamphetamine industry has also found fertile ground.

In response to a survey we sent in 2009 to police agencies across the country, we learned from the police in Galax that like many other places around the country a disproportionate number of the drug arrests they were making involved methamphetamine. They reported only small amounts of methamphetamine being produced in what could be called local laboratories, while most of it was being imported from Mexico. And as we found true in most places around the country, typically the methamphetamine being used by local people was being sold not in public, but in private places, particularly homes. Our police survey respondents in Galax told us that methamphetamine was a very serious problem for them. So when we chose agencies from among those that had responded to our survey to call and conduct a personal interview, we included Galax.

During our telephone interview with the police in Galax they again told us that most of their drug arrests involved methamphetamine, and most of the methamphetamine came from Mexico. We asked whether the trade in methamphetamine was different from the trade in other drugs, like heroin or cocaine. The police respondent replied that with methamphetamine, the dealers, the wholesale distributors, tend to be Hispanic. We’re starting to see large amounts of money. We’re seeing some wholesale points. We may [arrest] a Mexican that’s in a mobile home with a mattress, a television, VCR, and refrigerator. And all he does is to distribute quantities of methamphetamine, collect money, and give [the money] to somebody who comes to pick it up. When we started our research in 2007 we expected to find people cooking methamphetamine in their homes and selling what they cooked to people in their community. We did not expect to find dealers devoid of local ties. So we decided to include Galax as a place we would visit during the third stage of our study, the site visits.

Galax was one of the first places we visited for our study of the dynamics of methamphetamine markets. And what we learned there changed everything for us. We started out thinking of methamphetamine markets primarily as local mom-and-pop businesses operated on a small scale by individual cooks who made small amounts of product to serve a small number of local users. We knew that the federal and state legislation from the middle