Brokered Illegal Drug Sales as a Measure of Local Demand

Background: Relevant drug policies require an ongoing understanding of the local demand for illegal drugs. To overcome purchasing barriers, people who use illegal drugs utilize their peers to purchase substances for them. Such 'brokering' is a drug acquisition strategy and for a broker a way to obtain drugs for free. Underappreciated is that it is also a measure of local demand as frequencies of brokering will increase if people are buying more drug, are switching drugs, or when a new drug becomes popular.

Methods: This paper presents findings from a brief survey on brokering collected from a random sample (N=241) of active illegal drug injectors recruited from two syringe exchange programs in Ohio, USA.

Results: Findings indicate that 30-day and lifetime brokering behavior is common (71% and 90% respectively). Respondents who brokered in the last 30-days (n=181) purchased drugs for on overage 7 people from on average 4 different sellers/dealers. In this group, over 84% indicated that they used drugs with the person they brokered for, 49% reported often or always inflating the price to the buyer, and 27% indicated they removed some drug before returning to the buyer. 150 respondents brokered for heroin, and 47 for fentanyl.

Conclusion: The demand for illegal drugs incorporates the increased use of a drug, changes in the use of different drugs, and/or a novel drug being used. Accessing drugs via brokering accommodates these dynamics. This paper indicates the utility of measuring dimensions of brokering as a signal of illegal drug market demand over time.

Disclosure of interest statement: Dr. Hoffer was funded by Case Western Reserve University for this project. No pharmaceutical funding was received in the development of this study. Partial funding was provided by NIH Grant from the United States National Institute on Drug Abuse grant 5R01DA047994-02.