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Abstract
This study uses wholesale prices of MDMA for 59 cities in the USA published by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC) over the period of 2002–2011 to identify trafficking patterns of MDMA. Price differentials and correlations between pairs of cities are used to infer the presence of a link and the direction of flow of MDMA. The presence of inward and outward links is used to categorise each city as a ‘source’, ‘destination’, ‘transit’, or ‘weakly integrated’ city. The analysis identified low prices close to the Canadian and Mexican borders, in a number of cities such as Chicago, Miami, New York City, a trio of cities in the Carolinas, and along the West Coast. A number of these cities are linked to large numbers of other cities, indicating hub- or source-like status. The findings generate insights into the status of major US cities in the MDMA trafficking network.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the assistance of the National Drug Intelligence Center for providing price data on MDMA. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions on the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
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29. Ibid.
30. See note 26.
31. Borgatti, et al., “Robustness of Centrality Measures.”
32. Chandra and Barkell, “Price Data”; Chandra, Barkell and Steffen, “Inferring Cocaine Flows”; Chandra, Peters and Zimmer, “ Powdered Cocaine.”
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37. See note 35.
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40. See note 26.
41. See note 13.
42. See notes 10and 11; Morselli, Inside Criminal Networks.
43. Caulkins and Bond, “Marijuana Price Gradients.”
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Siddharth Chandra
Siddharth Chandra is Professor and Director of the Asian Studies Center at Michigan State University. His research interests include behaviour and policy relating to addictive substances, the intersection of economics, health and history in Asia and applications of portfolio theory to fields outside finance, for which the theory was originally developed.
Yan-Liang Yu
Yan-Liang Yu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. His primary research interests are health disparities and the marriage–health link over the life course. His recent research examines health implications of interracial marriage among non-Hispanic whites and blacks in the United States. He is currently working on a project that investigates how marital experiences are linked to chronic disease progression among older adults in the United States diagnosed with diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Vinay Bihani
Vinay Bihani is Data Scientist working with Cognizant Technology Solutions, consulting for clients in diverse domains such as retail, insurance and real estate. He graduated from Michigan State University with a Master of Science degree in Business Analytics. His work includes analysing data using data mining techniques, developing predictive models using various machine learning algorithms and time series methods, and drawing insights from the results.