Abstract
Ethnographic research identifies brokering (a.k.a., “copping for others”) as an important and popular way people who use heroin acquire the drug by making purchases for their peers. Brokering is when a customer buys drugs for a fellow customer using the buyer’s money and is paid using drug the buyer purchases. This distributes heroin costs. Heroin dealers obviously manipulate price and/or drug purity to make profits and compete for buyers, but a hidden way they alter “price” is by adjusting the size of heroin packages they sell. Using an agent-based model, we simulate brokering and heroin package resizing to understand how these dynamics influence heroin consumption costs. High rates of dealer arrest are tested against these dynamics. Findings indicate the Quantity-Adjusted Price of heroin is greater than its retail price in all conditions, implying increased competition in heroin markets does not lower costs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Roddy, J., Steinmiller, C.L., Greenwald, M.K.: Heroin Purchasing is Income and Price Sensitive. Psychol. Addict. Behav. 25(2), 358–364 (2011)
Roddy, J., Greenwald, M.K.: An Economic Analysis of Income and Expenditures by Heroin-Using Research Volunteers. Substance Use and Misuse 44, 1503–1518 (2009)
Needle, H.R., Mills, A.R.: Drug Procurement Practices of the Out-of-Treatment Chronic Drug Abuser, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH Publication No. 94-3820 (1994)
Johnson, B.D., Goldstein, P.J., Preble, E., et al.: Taking Care of Business: The Economics of Crime by Heroin Abusers. Lexington Books, Lexington (1985)
Hoffer, L.D., Bobashev, G., Morris, R.J.: Researching a Local Heroin Market as a Complex Adaptive System. American J. of Community Psychology 44, 273–286 (2009)
Curtis, R., Wendel, T.: Toward the Development of a Typology of Illegal Drug Markets. In: Natarajan, M., Hough, M. (eds.) Illegal Drug Markets: From Research to Prevention Policy, Crime Prevention Studies, vol. 10, pp. 121–151. Criminal Justice Press, Monsey (2000)
Page, J.B., Singer, M.: Comprehending Drug Use: Ethnographic Research at the Social Margins. Rutgers Univ. Press, NJ (2010)
Hoffer, L.D.: Junkie Business: the Evolution and Operation of a Heroin Dealing Network. Thomson Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont (2006)
Goldstein, P.J.: Getting Over: Economic Alternatives to Predatory Crime Among Street Drug Users. In: Inciardi, J.A. (ed.) The Drug-Crime Connection, pp. 67–84. Sage (1981)
Preble, E., Casey, J.J.: Taking Care of Business: The Heroin User’s Life on the Street. International J. of Addictions 4, 1–24 (1969)
Waldorf, D.: Careers in Dope. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1973)
Zule, W.A.: Risk and Reciprocity: HIV and the Injection Drug User. J. of Psychoactive Drugs 24(3), 243–249 (1992)
Page, J.B., Smith, P.C., Kane, N.: Shooting Galleries, their Proprietors, and Implications for Prevention of AIDS. Drugs and Society 5(1-2), 69–85 (1990)
Koester, S., Hoffer, L.D.: Indirect Sharing: Additional HIV Risks Associated with Drug Injection. AIDS and Public Policy J. 9(2), 100–105 (1994)
Maher, L.: Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) Trial: Ethnographic Monitoring Component, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Technical Report No. 36 (1996)
Consumer Reports, February 18-21 (2011)
Megerdichian, A.: Product Downsizing and Hidden Price Changes in the Ready-to-Eat Cereal Market, dissertation chapter (2010)
Caulkins, J.P., Reuter, P.: What Price Data Tell Us about Drug Markets. J. of Drug Issues 28(3), 593–612 (1998)
Newman, M.E.J.: The structure and function of complex networks. SIAM Review 45, 167–256 (2004)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hoffer, L., Alam, S.J. (2013). “Copping” in Heroin Markets: The Hidden Information Costs of Indirect Sales and Why They Matter. In: Greenberg, A.M., Kennedy, W.G., Bos, N.D. (eds) Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction. SBP 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7812. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37210-0_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37210-0_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37209-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37210-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)