How much do Manhattan-arrestees spend on drugs?

Area of Science:

• Criminology
• Public Health
• Drug Policy

Background:

• Drug expenses offer insights into drug markets, financial burdens, and treatment challenges.
• Traditional expense estimation relies on holistic self-reporting.
• The Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program introduced a detailed questionnaire in 2000 to improve data granularity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a procedure for estimating drug expenses using the new ADAM questionnaire.
• To present and analyze findings from ADAM-Manhattan respondents (2000-2002).
• To compare new estimates with data from the previous questionnaire (1998-1999).

Main Methods:

• Utilized a detailed ADAM questionnaire focusing on specific drug purchase amounts.
• Analyzed data from 2979 arrestees interviewed between 2000-2002 in Manhattan.
• Compared findings with 2256 arrestees interviewed using the prior questionnaire (1998-1999).

Main Results:

• Median 30-day drug expenses varied significantly by drug type and frequency of use.
• Infrequent marijuana users spent ~$5, while daily users spent ~$600.
• Combined heroin and cocaine users exceeded $1000 in expenses; prior estimates were approximately half as large.

Conclusions:

• The enhanced ADAM questionnaire shows potential for significantly improving drug expense estimations.
• Further research is necessary to validate the accuracy of these new estimation methods.