Crystal Meth - Supply and Demand
Submitted by the Moose Jaw Crystal Meth Strategy Committee
Society’s relationship to Crystal Meth has evolved over time. What began as a chemistry experiment became a medical movement and eventually ended up a criminal scourge.
In 1967 there were over 30 million US methamphetamine prescriptions written. In 1997 more than 50 thousand
Americans were admitted for public methamphetamine treatment.
In 2018 methamphetamine offenses accounted for 39.8% of all US federal drug cases.
For a Canadian context consider the nearly 15,000 Meth related arrests in 2019, more than 10,000 for simple possession.
Faced with the consequences of drug abuse, society understandably came to view drugs as an enemy invasion needing to be met with force. In a 1971 address President Richard Nixon declared, “In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”
The result of this approach has been possibly the longest lasting, most expensive, and deadliest war in human history.
Since 1968 there have been over one million overdose deaths in the US, over 800,000 of them occurring since 1999. America alone has spent upwards of one trillion dollars to wage the war on drugs.
In order to get a better sense of this conflict and its battle-tactics we can look at two different approaches to responding to drug abuse and crime.
The first, referred to as “supply side intervention”, involves surveillance, regulation, arrest and prosecution, incarceration, search and seizure, organized crime infiltration, and crop eradication.
The second approach known as “demand side intervention” include less confrontational efforts like education, treatment, prevention, drug court, and harm reduction.
Methamphetamine is a synthetic substance, meaning that it must be created by a process combining more basic ingredients.
The common metaphor is a chef cooking meth in a kitchen.
The need for “precursor” building blocks allows for supply-side interventions aimed at regulating and controlling these substances. Ingredients like Ephedrine or Pseudo-ephedrine can be extracted from legal products like cold medicines and used in Meth production.
As domestic regulation for these products increased in America, the production of Crystal Meth shifted to other countries.
In the modern black market, sophisticated “super-labs” are supplied by intricate transnational crime organizations. These criminal groups traffic not only Methamphetamine, but also the precursor chemicals necessary for production.
The theory behind regulation of precursors is that by disrupting the supply chain of these criminal enterprises, the cost of Methamphetamine will rise, the purity of the drug will decrease, and the demand among users will decrease.
A strong benefit of this type of intervention is that it avoids an already extreme tendency to put drug users in prison.
From 1980 through 2011 the rate of US incarceration rose from 100 per 100,000 people, to 492 per 100,000. The percentage of drug related sentences during the same period increased from 22% to 48%. Methamphetamine, being the second most popular drug worldwide, accounts for a substantial number of these incarcerations.
Critics of a supply-side approach argue the most successful examples only impacted price and purity for at most two years before returning to original levels or higher.
Another critique is that supply-side interventions create a vicious cycle between law enforcement and crime resulting in all aspects of the drug war escalating.
For example, now that precursor chemicals are strictly regulated, a new black market for “pre”-precursor chemicals has emerged.
Another approach, referred to as “demand-side” interventions, aim at reducing the amount of drug abuse rather than the amount of drugs. Research starting in the late 1980’s suggests that even treatment programs with high-relapse rates can be substantially more cost-effective than enforcement tactics.
Consider injection drug use which is associated with more severe consequences, in particular for those injecting methamphetamine. Needle sharing among this population of users results in increased transmission of serious disease such as HIV and Hepatitis C.
In 2015 there were an estimated 2000 injection drug users in Saskatoon, and a rate of HIV three times the national average. Nearly 80% of these infections were attributed to injection drug use, compared to the national proportion of under 20%.
A paper published in 2015 concluded that the establishment of two Safe Injection Facilities in Saskatoon would result in annual savings of $764,970 and increase taxpayer revenue.
In October of 2020 the Prairie Harm Reduction Safe Consumption Site opened in Saskatoon. While the provincial government provides funding to the organization, they denied funding requests for the safe consumption program.
Public opinion has also been mixed.
A recent survey showed 80% of respondents believe addiction is a healthcare issue, though less than half believed the government should provide funding for the facility.
Demand-side interventions which do garner public support and significant funding often fail to deliver genuine results.
The Montana Meth Project (MMP) is a prevention campaign beginning in 2005 focused on graphic advertising of the dangers of meth.
Users are portrayed as unhygienic, dangerous, and exploitative. Claims from the MMP and its advocates that the campaign has successfully shifted attitudes and usage trends have been called into question by independent and peer- reviewed inquiry.
Despite these criticisms similar projects were adopted by seven other states and government funding became abundant.
Another example is the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program. Though shown to be ineffective in the 1990’s it remained the most popular and heavily funded program in American schools well into the 2000’s.
Methamphetamine is a major concern across multiple levels of society.
Whether considering public health, criminal justice, or social stability, there is little argument that intervention is desperately needed.
The question of which interventions are most effective and deserving of support does not experience a similar level of consensus.
While the public perspective on drug use is shifting from a morality and criminal lens towards a health and addiction focus, the interventions receiving the most funding are by far supply-side efforts emphasizing enforcement.
Demand-side efforts that do receive support often contribute to fear and stigma, ultimately being identified as ineffective or even counterproductive.
The way a problem is framed becomes a major factor in how we then try solving that problem.
For at least 50 years the dominant frame for responding to drug abuse has been an “us versus them” war against an enemy invasion. Not surprising then is our tendency to prefer interventions that attack back.
The Moose Jaw Crystal Meth Strategy is working towards a better, more effective response to the methamphetamine crisis. Interventions with genuinely positive impacts help society as a whole.
The goal is not to simply address the struggles of a given individual, but to build a community where our collective ingenuity responds to the problems impacting us all.
Those who suffer in war are not only the combatants, but everyone on or near the battlefield. Similarly, when the war ends everyone becomes safer and more able to thrive.
The difference between victory and surrender is a matter of perspective.
But from our perspective at the Crystal Meth Strategy, if a war can never be won, does the difference matter?
(Written and submitted by Rom Jukes, MJCMSC committee member)
Who are we?