In 1993 and 1994, the Office of National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP) demonstrated that heroin users could be
interviewed to describe various aspects of drug market activity.
Improving the understanding of search costs more accurately portrayed
the full costs users paid for drugs and helped policymakers identify
factors that affect the availability of drugs. In 1995 ONDCP, in
collaboration with the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), extended
this analysis to include two additional drugs -- powder cocaine and
crack cocaine. This new study, called the Procurement Study, was
executed as an addendum to NIJ's Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program
(DRUG USE FORECASTING IN 24 CITIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1987-1997
[ICPSR 9477]) and sought to explore additional features of drug market
participation and use, both within and across drug types and
cities. While earlier market studies had involved developing separate
data collection samples, the Procurement Study was fielded as a
supplement to the ongoing interviews of arrestees as part of the DUF
program. The study was exploratory and sought to address the practical
and policy implications of various drug market participation
patterns. Although this study cannot identify which policies work best
in a given drug market, it does provide important insights on how drug
markets differ and how drug users and drug markets are affected by
different circumstances.
To determine how drug markets differed and how
drug users and drug markets were affected by different circumstances,
the Procurement Study, which added 100 questions to the DUF interview,
was implemented quarterly for one year in six DUF sites (Chicago, New
York, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, and Washington, DC). These
sites were selected because they had consistently shown the highest
rates of heroin use among the DUF sites and also had substantial
levels of cocaine use. Because previous studies provided an overview
of heroin markets, this research emphasized interviewing crack
users. The procurement interview collected data on both drug purchase
patterns and drug use patterns for specific drugs. The DUF interview
provided demographic and descriptive data on the respondent's
alcohol/drug history and on the crime for which he or she was
arrested. At the end of the interview, respondents, all of whom were
recent arrestees, were asked to provide a urine specimen that was
tested for ten drugs in order to validate their self-reported drug
use.
Recent arrestees who had completed the main DUF
questionnaire and had reported powder cocaine, crack, or heroin use in
the 30 days prior to arrest.
Recent arrestees in six United States cities.
Individual arrestees.
personal interviews, arrest records, and clinical
records
administrative records data
clinical data
medical records
survey data
Each of the three files in this collection, Crack
Data (Part 1), Heroin Data (Part 2), and Powder Cocaine Data (Part 3),
is comprised of data from a procurement interview, urine test
variables, and a DUF interview. During the procurement interview,
information was collected on purchase and use patterns for specific
drugs. Variables from the procurement interview include the
respondent's method of using the drug, the term used to refer to the
drug, whether the respondent bought the drug in the neighborhood, the
number of different dealers the respondent bought the drug from, how
the respondent made the connection with the dealer (i.e., street,
house, phone, beeper, business/store, or friends), their main drug
source, whether the respondent went to someone else if the source was
not available, how the respondent coped with not being able to find
drugs to buy, whether the respondent got the drug for free, the means
by which the respondent obtained money, the quantity and packaging of
the drug, and the number of minutes spent searching for, traveling to,
and waiting for their last purchase. Urine tests screened for the
presence of ten drugs, including marijuana, opiates, cocaine, PCP,
methadone, benzodiazepines (Valium), methaqualone, propoxyphene
(Darvon), barbiturates, and amphetamines (positive test results for
amphetamines were confirmed by gas chromatography). Data from the DUF
interview provide detailed information about each arrestee's
self-reported use of 15 drugs. For each drug type, arrestees were
asked whether they had ever used the drug, the age at which they first
used the drug, whether they had used the drug within the past three
days, how many days they had used the drug within the past month,
whether they had ever needed or felt dependent on the drug, and
whether they were dependent on the drug at the time of the
interview. Data from the DUF interview instrument also included
alcohol/drug treatment history, information about whether arrestees
had ever injected drugs, and whether they were influenced by drugs
when the crime that they were charged with was committed. The data
also include information about whether the arrestee had been to an
emergency room for drug-related incidents and whether he or she had
had prior arrests in the past 12 months. Demographic data include the
age, race, sex, educational attainment, marital status, employment
status, and living circumstances of each respondent.
Study interviews were conducted with about 42
percent of the eligible powder cocaine users, 70 percent of the
eligible crack users, and 52 percent of the eligible heroin users,
although there was substantial variation by site and gender. In
addition, two separate interviews were completed with about 63 percent
of the eligible heroin-and-powder cocaine users and 57 percent of the
eligible heroin-and-crack users.
None.