National Drug Intelligence Center   Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2008   June 2008

Drug Threat Overview

The Rocky Mountain HIDTA region is a significant distribution and transshipment center for illicit drugs supplied by Mexican DTOs. They exploit the region's centralized location, proximity to Mexican sources of supply, and extensive transportation infrastructure to distribute wholesale quantities of ice methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. Mexican DTOs and criminal groups use key distribution centers in Colorado, including Denver and Colorado Springs, as well as Salt Lake City, Utah, to supply illicit drugs to smaller cities throughout the region, such as Fort Collins, Pueblo, and Greeley, Colorado; Billings, Montana; and Cheyenne, Wyoming, and to transship drugs to markets in the Midwest and the eastern United States. Mexican DTOs and criminal groups continue to refine their operations as well as expand into the region's more remote areas to further their trafficking and distribution capabilities.

Ice methamphetamine² poses the greatest drug threat to the region; widespread distribution and abuse of the drug strain limited local law enforcement, public health, and social service resources throughout the HIDTA region. Successful law enforcement operations and precursor control legislation have significantly decreased powder methamphetamine production in the region; however, Mexican DTOs have compensated for this decline by supplying significant quantities of high-purity ice methamphetamine from Mexico. Methamphetamine-related treatment admissions to publicly funded facilities continue to exceed the number of admissions for any other illicit drug. The threat posed by ice methamphetamine is compounded by the drug's addictive nature and the direct association that methamphetamine abuse has with high levels of violence, identity theft, and property crime in the region.

Table 1. Law Enforcement Responses to the National Drug Threat Survey 2007 Pertaining to Methamphetamine, Rocky Mountain HIDTA States, in Percentages

Source: National Drug Intelligence Center.

Cocaine is widely available and abused in the Rocky Mountain HIDTA region; crack cocaine continues to pose a significant drug threat in metropolitan areas, while powder cocaine abuse appears to be increasing in many areas of the region. Cocaine availability is reportedly increasing in the region, despite reports of temporary cocaine shortages in Denver in early 2007. During the first half of 2007, Denver law enforcement officers reported temporary shortages in powder cocaine availability along with decreased purity and increased prices. However, during the latter half of 2007, cocaine purity and prices returned to previous levels. Mexican DTOs increasingly supply members of Hispanic street gangs and independent dealers in metropolitan areas with powder cocaine. Law enforcement officials in Aurora, Colorado Springs, Denver, and Fort Collins, Colorado; Provo, Ogden, and Salt Lake City, Utah; Billings and Bozeman, Montana; and in southwestern and northeastern Wyoming report rising availability of powder cocaine. Increasing availability of cocaine in Wyoming may be attributed in part to an influx of transient energy sector workers with a great deal of disposable income, some of whom abuse illicit drugs, and to growing demand generated by some former methamphetamine abusers in Utah and Wyoming who switched to powder cocaine as a result of successful law enforcement efforts targeting methamphetamine and extensive public awareness campaigns. Much of the powder cocaine that is transported to the region is converted into crack by African American and Hispanic retail-level distributors in metropolitan neighborhoods where the drug is sold.

Marijuana is the most widely available and frequently abused drug in the HIDTA region. Mexican DTOs and criminal groups are the primary traffickers of commercial-grade Mexican marijuana, the most available type in the region. In addition, Mexican DTOs and criminal groups operate most of the large outdoor grow operations that are generally located in counties that have extensive remote locations, public lands, and rural areas. The increasing availability of high-potency marijuana in the region is attributed to the continued smuggling of high-potency marijuana from Canada and the growing prevalence of indoor cannabis grow sites operated by Asian DTOs and Caucasian independent dealers. Law enforcement officials in Colorado and Utah reported that illegal cannabis cultivators are taking advantage of the downturn in the real estate market by purchasing multiple vacant residences and setting up indoor grow operations. Moreover, in the Denver area numerous individuals are exploiting state medicinal marijuana laws and caregiver status to operate illicit indoor cannabis grows. According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Colorado state law permits a patient and his or her primary caregiver to collectively possess no more than 2 ounces of a usable form of marijuana and no more than six cannabis plants, with three or fewer being mature, flowering plants that produce a usable form of marijuana.³

The distribution and abuse of heroin (primarily Mexican black tar and brown powder) have traditionally been limited to large urban areas. However, HIDTA officials report increasing heroin distribution in secondary market areas of the region, primarily Fort Collins, Greeley, Aurora, and Pueblo, Colorado. According to Colorado's Front Range Task Force, Mexican heroin distribution cells are expanding in size, efficiency, and sophistication, resulting in increased heroin availability. This increased availability has resulted in lower prices and higher purity levels, factors that have led a growing number of younger users (predominantly adolescents ages 16 and older) to abuse heroin. Health service officials have noted that many younger heroin users in Utah and Wyoming began abusing prescription narcotics such as OxyContin and ultimately switched to heroin because it is cheaper and easier to obtain.

MDMA availability and abuse vary within the region; Wyoming and Montana law enforcement officials report low levels of MDMA availability and abuse, while officials in Denver and Salt Lake City report increased distribution and abuse. In the Denver metropolitan area, Asian criminal groups, Asian gangs, and independent Caucasian distributors are the primary suppliers of MDMA. The Metro Gang Task Force in Denver continues to seize large amounts of MDMA (seizures of 10,000 dosage units are not uncommon) from sources in California. Increasing MDMA abuse is also contributing to a revival of rave-type activities in Denver and Salt Lake City.

Diverted pharmaceutical drugs and other dangerous drugs (ODDs) pose a lesser threat to the HIDTA region. Abuse of diverted pharmaceutical drugs--particularly OxyContin--has been increasing; however, many prescription narcotics abusers are shifting to Mexican black tar heroin abuse because of the drug's lower costs and greater availability. ODDs, primarily LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide); ketamine; steroids; and GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate), are available and abused to a limited extent in metropolitan areas of the HIDTA region.

End Notes

2. For the purposes of this report, ice methamphetamine refers to methamphetamine that has been crystallized from powder methamphetamine.
3. "Patient" refers to a person who has a debilitating medical condition. "Primary caregiver" is a person, other than the patient or the patient's physician, who is 18 years of age or older and has significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient who has a debilitating medical condition. "Usable form of marijuana" means the seeds, leaves, buds, and flowers of the plant (genus) cannabis and any mixture or preparation thereof that is appropriate for medical use according to state guidelines, but excludes the plant's stalks, stems, and roots.

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