National Drug Intelligence Center   Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2008   May 2008

Strategic Drug Threat Developments

• Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), the primary transporters and wholesale distributors of illicit drugs in the Ohio HIDTA region, are increasingly bypassing Chicago and Detroit and transporting drugs directly from the Southwest Border to markets in the HIDTA region.
   
• Mexican DTOs have greatly increased the availability of Mexican brown powder and black tar heroin in southern counties of the Ohio HIDTA region; they are also expanding their heroin distribution networks into northeastern Ohio markets, where Dominican and Puerto Rican traffickers supply South American (SA) heroin.
   
• Heroin availability and abuse are rising in the Ohio HIDTA region and throughout the state, primarily among young Caucasian adults who previously abused prescription narcotics. This may be attributed to an increased supply of Mexican heroin throughout the HIDTA region and the implementation of Ohio's prescription monitoring program.
   
• Methamphetamine laboratory seizures in the Ohio HIDTA region decreased over 52 percent from 2005 to 2007, indicating a decline in local methamphetamine production--decreasing supplies of locally produced methamphetamine have not yet been supplanted by methamphetamine produced outside the region, including methamphetamine produced in Mexico.
   
• African American and Hispanic street gangs have increased their distribution of MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy) in the HIDTA region, particularly in Cleveland and Columbus; treatment providers report that MDMA abuse is rising in Cleveland.

HIDTA Overview

The Ohio HIDTA region consists of Cuyahoga, Lucas, Mahoning, Stark, and Summit Counties in northern Ohio, and Fairfield, Franklin, Greene, Hamilton, Montgomery, and Warren Counties in southern Ohio. (See Figure 1 in Preface.) These counties contain more than half of Ohio's population and encompass the nine largest cities in the state. The Ohio HIDTA region is linked to major domestic drug source areas, including Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and the Southwest Border, by numerous interstate highways that often are used by drug traffickers to smuggle illicit drugs into and through the region. Ohio has the fourth-largest interstate highway system and carries the fifth-largest volume of traffic in the nation. Commercial truck traffic in Ohio has grown 90 percent over the last 25 years and is expected to further increase 60 percent by 2020. Large amounts of illicit drugs transported to the area are abused locally; however, some are transshipped to drug markets in neighboring states. Mexican and, to a lesser extent, Dominican and Jamaican DTOs are the predominant transporters of illicit drugs that are distributed in or pass through the area. Additionally, Mexican DTOs are expanding their wholesale and midlevel distribution of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in the HIDTA region and in neighboring jurisdictions. Significant amounts of illicit drugs are seized annually from such traffickers by law enforcement officials through Ohio HIDTA initiatives. (See Table 1.)

Table 1. Illicit Drugs Seized Through Ohio HIDTA Initiatives, in Kilograms, 2007

Source: Ohio High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.
* Dosage units
a. Includes federally scheduled drugs only.

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