NCJ Number
223849
Date Published
June 2008
Length
71 pages
Annotation
This report intends to provide policymakers; Federal, State, and tribal law enforcement officials; and resource planners with strategic intelligence about drug trafficking and abuse in Indian country.
Abstract
One key finding of the report is that the threat of illicit drug marketing and abuse varies geographically across Native-American communities. Overall, marijuana is the most widely available illicit drug on reservations. Ice methamphetamine, powder and crack cocaine, diverted pharmaceuticals, heroin, and MDMA are also available and abused at some level on reservations throughout the country. A second key finding is that most illicit drugs available in Indian country are transported to reservations by Native-American criminal groups and independent dealers. A third key finding is that Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are the principal wholesale suppliers and producers of illicit drugs available to reservations throughout Indian Country. Canadian-based Asian DTOs also pose an organizational threat to Indian Country, particularly to reservations near the United States-Canada border. Another key finding is that national and local street gangs are increasingly distributing retail-level quantities of illicit drugs on reservations, along with the perpetration of gang-related criminal activities that facilitate their drug distribution operations. The report also indicates that drug production in Indian Country is limited; however, Mexican DTOs are suspected of producing marijuana from cannabis cultivated at outdoor grow sties in remote locations on many reservations, particularly those located in the Pacific Region. African-American criminal groups also convert powder cocaine into crack cocaine on some reservations. All of these findings help explain another key finding of the report, i.e., that Native-American substance abuse levels are higher than those for any other demographic group, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Sources of information for this report are provided. 15 tables, 11 figures, and appended supplementary data and information