ARCHIVED Skip nagivation.To Contents     To Next Page     To Publications Page     To Home Page

Strategic Drug Threat Developments

To Top      To Contents

 

HIDTA Overview

The W/B HIDTA region encompasses four distinct population centers--the Baltimore metropolitan area, the District of Columbia, northern Virginia, and the Richmond metropolitan area. The region includes the following city and county jurisdictions: Maryland (the city of Baltimore as well as Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Charles, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince George's Counties); northern Virginia (the city of Alexandria along with Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties); the Richmond metropolitan area (the cities of Chesterfield, Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Petersburg, and Richmond as well as Hanover, Henrico, and Prince George Counties); and Washington, D.C.

Economic, demographic, and transportation factors make the W/B HIDTA region a fertile environment for drug trafficking and abuse. Some areas, such as inner-city Baltimore, Richmond, and Washington, D.C., are economically depressed, leading some residents to view drug trafficking as the only means of financial gain and drug abuse as a form of escape. Revitalization efforts in Washington, D.C., have included the demolition of several public housing projects and have resulted in the dispersion of drug- and gang-related problems to suburban areas, particularly in Maryland. The W/B HIDTA region has a large and increasing population; the combined Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area is the fourth largest in the nation, with a current population of more than eight million. The region is becoming more ethnically and racially diverse, particularly in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, where more than 133,200 Salvadoran immigrants currently reside. The next largest groups come from India (62,300), Korea (58,900), China (46,600), Mexico (43,600), and Vietnam (43,200). In particular, the growing Hispanic population in the region has enabled Colombian, Dominican, Mexican and, increasingly, Guatemalan and Salvadoran criminal groups and gangs with ties to drug source and transit countries to operate more easily. Drug trafficking in the region is facilitated by an extensive transportation infrastructure that includes highways--Interstate 95, in particular--railway and bus systems, two international seaports, and four international airports with passenger and cargo services.

To Top      To Contents

 

Drug Threat Overview

The distribution and abuse of crack cocaine pose the greatest drug threats in most areas of the region; however, in the city of Baltimore, the abuse of heroin (primarily South American (SA) heroin) is the principal drug threat. High levels of violent and property crime associated with crack cocaine and heroin trafficking severely tax law enforcement resources in the HIDTA region. The social and health consequences of cocaine and heroin abuse also strain social services and public health resources in the HIDTA region. Heroin abuse is multigenerational in the Baltimore area, where both parents and children are enrolling in heroin abuse treatment programs. Furthermore, the abuse of heroin, particularly by injection, leads to multiple health risks, including the transmission of infectious diseases such as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and hepatitis.

Other illicit drugs are also trafficked and abused to varying degrees throughout the HIDTA region. Marijuana is the most widely available and abused drug in the region. Most of the marijuana available is Mexican commercial-grade; however, high-potency marijuana (Canadian and locally produced) is becoming increasingly available in parts of the region, such as Fairfax County, Virginia; Montgomery County, Maryland; and Baltimore. High profits and the perception of low risk associated with marijuana distribution are fueling an expansion of marijuana trafficking operations in the region. Methamphetamine is readily available in southwestern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley region, and abuse of the drug is spreading to rural and suburban areas adjacent to the HIDTA region. Anecdotal reporting suggests that methamphetamine abuse is prevalent in the male homosexual community in Washington, D.C. Diverted pharmaceutical drugs, particularly prescription narcotics such as oxycodone and methadone, are increasingly abused by young, affluent suburbanites who acquire the drugs from friends and family and through doctor-shopping. Reporting from treatment providers indicates that diverted prescription narcotics provide an alternative to heroin for abusers who view heroin use as too risky or costly. MDMA distribution and abuse are increasing in parts of suburban Washington, D.C., where the drug is often combined with other substances, such as alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and OxyContin by abusers to heighten their experience. PCP abuse, rare in most areas of the country, is emerging in some suburban areas in the HIDTA region but is most prevalent in southeast Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.

  
Fluctuations in Cocaine AvailabCocaine availability in the W/B HIDTA region fluctuated during the past year; a decrease in the first quarter of 2007 was most likely the result of local law enforcement successes and large seizures of the drug in Mexico. Cocaine availability returned to previous levels by the third quarter of 2007 in most parts of the region. However, fourth quarter 2007 law enforcement reporting regarding availability and price indicates that cocaine was in short supply in some parts of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. In Baltimore midlevel cocaine prices were higher in the fourth quarter of 2007, while in Washington, D.C., cocaine prices, especially at the wholesale level, have been high since the first half of 2007, when domestic cocaine shortages were first reported. Some midlevel distributors in the region are "shorting" buyers by misrepresenting the amounts that they are selling. For example, in July 2007 Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents in Richmond seized five plastic bags containing bricks of white powder--sham cocaine--which they suspected was going to be used in a drug rip-off as a result of the cocaine shortage.
  


To Top      To Contents     To Next Page

To Publications Page     To Home Page

UNCLASSIFIED


End of page.