Toward the end of last year, the DEA published its 2013 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary, a 28-page report chronicling drug consumption trends across the United States. These include the continued rise in abuse of prescription drugs (second only to marijuana in popularity), the increase in the production of heroin in Mexico and its availability in the U.S., and the emergence of synthetic designer drugs.
Much of the report is unremarkable—until you arrive at the section on cocaine. “According to [National Seizure System] data,” it reads, “approximately 16,908 kilograms of cocaine were seized at the southwest Border in 2011. During 2012, only 7,143 kilograms of cocaine were seized, a decrease of 58 percent.”
That sharp decline echoes an ongoing trend: 40 percent fewer people in the United States used cocaine in 2012 than they did in 2006; only 19 percent of Chicago arrestees had cocaine in their system two years ago compared to 50 percent in 2000; and less high school seniors say they’ve used cocaine in the last 12 months than at any time since the mid-70s. In fact, the report indicates cocaine was sporadically unavailable in Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, and St. Louis in the spring of 2012. So where’d the blow go? (...)
To speak at greater length on the subject, I reached out UCLA professor of public policy, Mark Kleiman, the nation’s leading authority on drug policy. Earlier this year he gained chronic celebrity status when Washington tapped him to be the state’s “pot czar.” On a recent Sunday morning, Professor Kleiman and I discussed the disappearance of cocaine and whether it would ever come back.
Why would a drug like cocaine ever disappear?
Drug use tends to follow epidemic cycles. When a drug appears, or reappears, it tends to does so at the top of the social spectrum—it’s associated with glamour. People are using it for the first time, and they’re having a good time. Very few people are in trouble with it because use is relatively new and it has terrific word of mouth. People say, “Oh my God, this is wonderful, you have to try this!” So you literally get an exponential growth in use. Every new user is a potential source of additional new users. You get a very rapid rise in the number of users.
As David Musto pointed out in The American Disease, over time, two things happen. Once everybody susceptible to the suggestion of “Let’s try this” has tried it, there’s a declining pool of new users. And, some of the original users have been at it long enough to develop a bad habit. So now there are fewer users to tell all their friends that "this is wonderful," and more problem users who either tell their friends, or demonstrate by their behavior, that this is not wonderful.
How did his cycle play out with cocaine?
In the case of cocaine, there was a rapid price decrease as drug dealers crowded into the market to take advantage of the bonanza. The price of cocaine dropped by 80 percent, which brought a new user group into the population. The development of the crack market made crack available to anyone with $5 for a rock; in the powder cocaine market, the price of admission was $100 for a gram. So, the social status of the drug fell along with the user group. Now, using cocaine puts you in a class not with hedge-fund managers, but with $5 crack whores. Surprisingly, people prefer to be in the “hedge-fund-manager” category, which doesn’t necessarily reflect sound moral judgment but is a social fact.
All of those things created a peak in use. The number of people starting cocaine use peaked in about 1985, which was before the Len Bias affair. Then we got a set of panic-driven policies aimed at suppressing the crack epidemic. We got mandatory sentencing, aggressive law enforcement, and a ramping-up of the War on Drugs. (...)
by Michael Zelenko, Vice | Read more:
Image: US Coast Guard
Much of the report is unremarkable—until you arrive at the section on cocaine. “According to [National Seizure System] data,” it reads, “approximately 16,908 kilograms of cocaine were seized at the southwest Border in 2011. During 2012, only 7,143 kilograms of cocaine were seized, a decrease of 58 percent.”That sharp decline echoes an ongoing trend: 40 percent fewer people in the United States used cocaine in 2012 than they did in 2006; only 19 percent of Chicago arrestees had cocaine in their system two years ago compared to 50 percent in 2000; and less high school seniors say they’ve used cocaine in the last 12 months than at any time since the mid-70s. In fact, the report indicates cocaine was sporadically unavailable in Chicago, Houston, Baltimore, and St. Louis in the spring of 2012. So where’d the blow go? (...)
To speak at greater length on the subject, I reached out UCLA professor of public policy, Mark Kleiman, the nation’s leading authority on drug policy. Earlier this year he gained chronic celebrity status when Washington tapped him to be the state’s “pot czar.” On a recent Sunday morning, Professor Kleiman and I discussed the disappearance of cocaine and whether it would ever come back.
Why would a drug like cocaine ever disappear?
Drug use tends to follow epidemic cycles. When a drug appears, or reappears, it tends to does so at the top of the social spectrum—it’s associated with glamour. People are using it for the first time, and they’re having a good time. Very few people are in trouble with it because use is relatively new and it has terrific word of mouth. People say, “Oh my God, this is wonderful, you have to try this!” So you literally get an exponential growth in use. Every new user is a potential source of additional new users. You get a very rapid rise in the number of users.
As David Musto pointed out in The American Disease, over time, two things happen. Once everybody susceptible to the suggestion of “Let’s try this” has tried it, there’s a declining pool of new users. And, some of the original users have been at it long enough to develop a bad habit. So now there are fewer users to tell all their friends that "this is wonderful," and more problem users who either tell their friends, or demonstrate by their behavior, that this is not wonderful.
How did his cycle play out with cocaine?
In the case of cocaine, there was a rapid price decrease as drug dealers crowded into the market to take advantage of the bonanza. The price of cocaine dropped by 80 percent, which brought a new user group into the population. The development of the crack market made crack available to anyone with $5 for a rock; in the powder cocaine market, the price of admission was $100 for a gram. So, the social status of the drug fell along with the user group. Now, using cocaine puts you in a class not with hedge-fund managers, but with $5 crack whores. Surprisingly, people prefer to be in the “hedge-fund-manager” category, which doesn’t necessarily reflect sound moral judgment but is a social fact.
All of those things created a peak in use. The number of people starting cocaine use peaked in about 1985, which was before the Len Bias affair. Then we got a set of panic-driven policies aimed at suppressing the crack epidemic. We got mandatory sentencing, aggressive law enforcement, and a ramping-up of the War on Drugs. (...)
Is that lifecycle built into every drug?
Yes, the question is when a drug moves from being purely epidemic to being endemic. And that’s happened with cocaine. Remember, the first cocaine epidemic—the long slow one that starts with Sigmund Freud. That one played itself out by the late 1920s. After that, cocaine use went close to zero. That didn’t happen this time—there is still cocaine initiation going on. I do not see any time soon when cocaine is not part of the American scene. It looks to me as if cocaine, the opiates and cannabis, like alcohol, now have a steady user base—not just an occasional flare up. But a drug that’s as destructive as cocaine is when heavily use—especially as crack—isn’t going to become endemic at a high level. The drug we have that’s endemic at a high level is alcohol, and unfortunately that’s not going away. And it looks to me like cannabis is going to join alcohol.
Yes, the question is when a drug moves from being purely epidemic to being endemic. And that’s happened with cocaine. Remember, the first cocaine epidemic—the long slow one that starts with Sigmund Freud. That one played itself out by the late 1920s. After that, cocaine use went close to zero. That didn’t happen this time—there is still cocaine initiation going on. I do not see any time soon when cocaine is not part of the American scene. It looks to me as if cocaine, the opiates and cannabis, like alcohol, now have a steady user base—not just an occasional flare up. But a drug that’s as destructive as cocaine is when heavily use—especially as crack—isn’t going to become endemic at a high level. The drug we have that’s endemic at a high level is alcohol, and unfortunately that’s not going away. And it looks to me like cannabis is going to join alcohol.
by Michael Zelenko, Vice | Read more:
Image: US Coast Guard
