MENU TITLE: Crack's Decline: Some Surprises Across U.S. Cities.                 
Series: NIJ research in Brief
Published: July 1997
20 pages
41,948 bytes

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice
Jeremy Travis, Director

Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included 
in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document 
in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic 
file available from this Web site or order a print 
copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420.

Research in Brief
July 1997

Crack's Decline: Some Surprises Across U.S. Cities

by Andrew Lang Golub and Bruce D. Johnson

Crack cocaine has been the source of much concern
to local officials across the United States ever
since it entered the scene in the 1980s. Cocaine
sellers' turf wars and the broader health
consequences of crack use have heightened the
challenges to criminal justice and public health
agencies. To gather useful information for local
officials on the course of illicit drug use,
including crack cocaine, the National Institute of
Justice launched the Drug Use Forecasting (DUF)
program in 1987 (see "The Drug Use Forecasting
Program").

This report examines the progress of the crack
epidemic at each of 24 locations served by the DUF
program from as early as 1987 (for some locations)
through 1996.[1] This information can be helpful
for current efforts to control crack use. To the
extent that future drug epidemics are similar to
the crack epidemic, agencies can use the DUF data
to better deploy their drug control resources. In
general, the study findings suggest the following:

o Drug epidemics tend to follow a natural course.
The popularity of a  particular drug--such as crack
cocaine--tends to start within a limited
subpopulation. Sometimes use of a drug catches on
and the rate of use increases dramatically until it
is widespread. At some point the drug may go out of
favor, leading to a slow but steady ebb in its use.

o Drug epidemics tend to be local. Which drugs are
most popular and when can vary substantially across
the country. The crack epidemic started and began
declining at different times in different
locations. As of 1996, crack use was in decline at
most DUF locations, especially those on the East
and West Coasts. However, in some noncoastal cities
the crack epidemic appeared as strong as ever.
 
o Local data can inform efforts to control drugs.
Information about the prevalence of certain drugs,
such as those monitored by the DUF program, can
help identify the phase of a drug epidemic a
community is experiencing, as it occurs. The
effectiveness of various drug abuse control
strategies might vary across phases. For example, a
warning message broadcast in the early part of an
epidemic may go unheeded, but the same message,
introduced later, may prove effective at speeding
the end of the epidemic. Additional research is
clearly needed in this area.

o Changes in use by youths indicate important
transitions in a drug's popularity. New drug
epidemics tend to start among older, more
established drug abusers. Use of a drug by youths
first coming of age (around age 18) indicates that
a drug epidemic has established a strong foothold.
Similarly, a drug epidemic is about to end when
substantially fewer youths start using the drug
than in preceding years. This indicator of a drug's
waning popularity may precede a more general
decline in use by several years.

Structure of a drug epidemic

The analysis reported here was guided by a
conceptual model of the crack epidemic developed
from standard epidemiological and
demographic models and based on observations
regarding prior drug epidemics. The model
identifies four distinct phases in a drug's
popularity over the course of an epidemic:
incubation, expansion, plateau, and decline. With
regard to the crack epidemic, each phase can be
distinguished by the proportion of hard drug users
(such as previous users of cocaine or heroin) at
any location who use crack. Given the strong
relationship between drugs and crime, this
variation should be reflected in the rate of
cocaine/crack use among arrestees detected by the
DUF program, now being reconfigured and expanded
(see "Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring").

Note that the DUF program detects recent cocaine
use via urinalysis but not the mode of consumption;
however, self-reports suggest that most of the
arrestees whose urine contained cocaine metabolytes
had smoked crack. In this Research in Brief, the
more technically accurate but awkward term
"detected cocaine/crack" is used to denote the
substance detected by urinalysis, that is, cocaine
in all its forms, including crack. 

Ethnographic reports, particularly about New York
City, provide detailed documentation of substantive
changes in the use of cocaine prevailing in the
1980s.[2] In New York City, cocaine smoking started
primarily among groups of cocaine dealers and
wealthier individuals who met from 1979 to 1981 at
afterhours clubs to smoke cocaine. These users
typically employed the more technically challenging
and dangerous method of freebasing that involves
heating cocaine powder with ether over an open
flame and inhaling the vapors. During this early
period, referred to as the incubation phase, DUF
would be expected to detect relatively few crack
users, and most of these would be older arrestees.

The development and acceptance of crack cocaine,
which occurred between 1982 and 1986 in New York
City, allowed more individuals to engage in cocaine
smoking due to its low price and ease of use,
leading to the expansion phase of the epidemic.
News of this innovative, easier method for
consuming cocaine spread rapidly, probably by word
of mouth. Most likely, the initial group of cocaine
smokers told some of their associates about the
practice; these then became crack smokers.
Subsequently, the pioneers and first new recruits
probably told other acquaintances. By this means,
the number of smokers and recruiters snowballed.[3]
The epidemic was now in its expansion phase, and
DUF would be expected to detect a rapidly
increasing number of cocaine smokers, most of them
older.

The dramatic growth of crack use in New York City
did not last forever. It was physically limited by
the number of people willing to try crack--
primarily those who were already using other hard
drugs. Once most of these had become crack users,
or at least had the opportunity to try the drug,
the crack epidemic entered the plateau phase.
During this period, crack was the drug of choice
among hard drug users. As a result, youths who came
of age during the plateau phase and would become
hard drug users started with the "popular" hard
drug of their day, crack. During the plateau phase,
DUF data would be expected to detect a relatively
high and constant rate of cocaine/crack use among
arrestees, including youthful arrestees.


Ethnographic evidence suggests that the crack
epidemic in New York City entered a decline around
1990 when youths began to disdain crack use.[4]
They considered "crackhead" a dirty word and even
took to abusing crackheads. Such a change in
attitude among youths heralded the beginning of 
the decline phase of the crack epidemic.  

However, hard drug users tend to keep using a
particular drug even after its broader popularity
has slipped. This has certainly been the case in
New York City with heroin injection. Injecting
heroin was quite popular during the 1960s and early
1970s, but in the 1970s heroin fell out of favor
and only a few individuals initiated its use,
youths not among them.[5] In the early 1990s, about
20 percent of New York City arrestees interviewed
by the DUF program were detected as recent heroin
users, which suggests that heroin use was still
quite widespread. However, the majority of these
detected users were middle aged and had been heroin
injectors since the 1960s and 1970s.[6] By analogy,
the decline in the crack epidemic should be first
noticeable when fewer youths become crack users
than in previous years. During the decline phase,
DUF would be expected to detect a gradual decrease
in the detected rate of recent cocaine/crack use
among all arrestees and a dramatic decrease among
youthful arrestees.

Geographic variation in the crack epidemic

The study examined the progress of the crack
epidemic at each DUF location through changes in
the prevalence of recent cocaine/crack use detected
among arrestees, particularly changes among
youthful arrestees defined as those aged 18-20 for
the purpose of this analysis.[7] The DUF data made
it possible to identify and analyze some of the
factors that affect drug use (see "Distinguishing
Age, Period, and Cohort Effects").
 
Another recent study has examined the use of crack
cocaine by particular populations to aid in the
development of informed, more effective criminal
justice policies. It is described in 
"Careers in Crack: Study Findings"
(see p. 11).

Subsequent sections of this Research in Brief
present and analyze the time series for locations
on the East Coast, West Coast, and interior
sections of the country, respectively. For each
location, the analysis identified the state of the
epidemic by 1996, the year in which the decline
phase was first discernible (if possible), and the
speed of the decline (if appropriate).8 A rapid
decline was distinguished as one for which both the
rates of detected cocaine/crack use among youthful
arrestees and among all arrestees decreased
substantially. A slow decline was one in which the
rate among all arrestees remained relatively
constant in spite of a dramatic decline among
youthful arrestees.[9]
 
Exhibit 2 indicates the state of the crack epidemic
in 1996 among arrestees at each of the DUF
locations. As of 1996, the epidemic was in decline
in 17 of 24 DUF locations, including all 9
locations on the East and West Coasts. However, at
five locations in the interior of the country, the
epidemic appeared to be continuing as strong as
ever. Two locations showed no sign of any epidemic
yet. Most striking, the timing of the crack
epidemic differed at several DUF sites near each
other.
 
The crack epidemic from 1987 to 1996 on the East
Coast

Fort Lauderdale--Slow decline starting in 1988. The
crack epidemic in Fort Lauderdale exhibited a
decline from 1987 to 1996. Although the rate of
detected cocaine/crack use hovered around 45
percent during this period, the rate among youthful
arrestees went down from 50 percent in 1987 to 19
percent by 1990. The rate returned to about 27
percent from 1991 to 1995 and dropped back to 22
percent in 1996.

Manhattan--Slow decline starting in 1989. The
epidemic showed a decline starting in 1989. From
1987 to 1995, the overall rate of detected 
cocaine/crack use hovered around 70 percent and
then showed a moderate drop to 62 percent in 1996.
The rate among youthful arrestees went from 70
percent in 1988 down to 31 percent in 1991, where
it remained through 1995. It declined further to 22
percent in 1996.

Miami--Moderate decline starting in 1991. In Miami
the epidemic started to decline in 1990 or 1991. A
lack of data for 1990 prevents giving a more
precise date. The rate of detected use among
youthful arrestees dropped from 60 percent in 1989
to 30 percent in 1992. The overall rate fell
moderately from 61 percent in 1991 to 52 percent in
1996.

Philadelphia--Rapid decline starting in 1989. A
substantial decline began in Philadelphia in 1989.
The rate of detected cocaine/crack use among
youthful arrestees went from 70 percent in 1988
down to only 21 percent in 1993. The overall rate
of detected cocaine/crack use also came down from
73 percent in 1989 to 49 percent in 1996.

Washington D.C.--Rapid decline starting in 1990.
From 1989 to 1996 Washington, D.C., experienced a
substantial decline in crack use, and the decline
may have started prior to 1990. However, an earlier
decline could not be detected because the DUF
program started data collection in Washington only
in 1989. The rate of detected cocaine/crack use
among youthful arrestees decreased from 39 percent
in 1989 to only 10 percent by 1995-1996. The
overall rate of detected cocaine/crack use declined
from 64 percent in 1989 to 35 percent in 1996.

The crack epidemic from 1987 to 1996 on the West
Coast

Los Angeles--Slow decline starting in 1989. The
crack epidemic in Los Angeles exhibited a decline
starting in 1989. The overall rate of detected
cocaine/crack use decreased modestly from 60
percent in 1988 to 46 percent in 1996. In contrast,
the rate among youthful arrestees declined from 46
percent in 1988 to 25 percent in 1990, where it
remained through 1996.

Portland (Oregon)--Slow decline starting in 1994.
The epidemic in Portland showed evidence of a
decline starting in 1994. The overall rate of
detected use took an anomalous dip from 41 percent
in 1989 down to 25 percent in 1990 but within 2
years returned to 40 percent. The rate of detected
cocaine/crack use among youthful arrestees
subsequently declined from 29 percent in 1993 to 18
percent in 1994, where it remained through 1996.
This decline appears to be more sustained than the
previous one.

San Diego--Rapid decline starting in 1992. From
1992 to 1996 San Diego experienced a sustained
decline in cocaine/crack use. The rate among
youthful arrestees declined continually from 37
percent in 1991 to 13 percent in 1996. Furthermore,
the overall rate of use went down from 44 percent
in 1991 to 26 percent by 1994.

San Jose--Rapid decline starting in 1990. In San
Jose the crack epidemic showed a dramatic decline
starting as early as 1990. The decline may have
started prior to 1990 but would not have been
detected because the DUF program did not collect
data in San Jose until 1989. The rate of detected
cocaine/crack use among youthful arrestees
descended steadily from 24 percent in 1989 to only
9 percent in 1996. Furthermore, the overall rate of
detected cocaine/crack use declined from 31 percent
in 1989 to only 18 percent by 1996.

The crack epidemic from 1987 to 1996 in interior
sections of the country

Atlanta--Plateau. The crack epidemic in Atlanta was
in the plateau stage from 1990 to 1996, with the
overall rate hovering around 60 percent. The rate
among youthful arrestees was much lower (about 30
percent) but similarly stable over the observation
period.
 
Birmingham--Slow decline starting in 1990. The
crack epidemic in Birmingham started to decline in
1990. Among youthful arrestees it went down from 37
percent in 1989 to 21 percent by 1992, where it
roughly remained through 1996. The overall rate
remained constant at about 50 percent through 1994
and subsequently declined to 41 percent by 1996.

Chicago--Slow decline starting in 1994. In Chicago
the decline started in 1994. The rate among youths
went down steadily from 49 percent in 1993 to 22
percent by 1996. The overall rate continued to
hover around 58 percent.

Cleveland--Slow decline starting in 1990. The crack
epidemic in Cleveland entered a particularly slow
but steady decline starting in 1990. The rate of
detected cocaine/crack use among youthful arrestees
declined in bits from 43 percent in 1989 to 22
percent by 1996. The overall rate hovered at around
55 percent through 1994 and subsequently dropped to
45 percent in 1996.

Dallas--Slow decline starting in 1989. In Dallas
the epidemic showed a decline starting in 1989. The
rate of detected cocaine/crack use among youthful
arrestees went from 44 percent in 1988 down to 18
percent by 1993, where it roughly remained through
1996. The overall rate also began to exhibit a
modest decline from 45 percent in 1993 down to 34
percent in 1996.


Denver--Plateau. From 1990 to 1992, the crack
epidemic in Denver expanded, after which it entered
a plateau phase. The overall rate of detected
cocaine/crack use increased solidly from 29 percent
in 1990 to 41 percent in 1992 and then continued up
more gradually to 47 percent by 1996. The rate
among youthful arrestees ranged erratically around
20 percent.

Detroit--Slow decline starting in 1988. Detroit
experienced a consistent decline from 1987 to 1996.
The rate among youthful arrestees went down
steadily from 45 percent in 1987 to only 5 percent
by 1996. The overall rate went down slowly from 55
percent in 1987 to 44 percent in 1993 and then
somewhat more rapidly to 33 percent by 1996.

Houston--Erratic decline starting in 1992. The peak
of the crack epidemic in Houston appears to have
been short lived. The overall rate of detected
cocaine/crack use rose from 40 percent in 1987 to a
high of 56 percent in 1991, then declined
precipitously to 43 percent by 1992 and more slowly
to 37 percent by 1996. This was the only DUF
location in which the overall decline occurred at
the same time and as strongly as that of youthful
arrestees. These data suggest that a substantial
portion of the existing crack users apparently
ceased their use in 1992. The rapid increase in the
rate among youthful arrestees from its low of 15
percent in 1994 back up to 35 percent in 1996
suggests that Houston may have experienced a
resurgence in crack use, but only among youths.

Indianapolis--Plateau/decline. The crack epidemic
in Indianapolis exhibited a dramatic expansion from
1992 to 1994. The overall rate of detected
cocaine/crack use increased from 24 percent in 1992
to 50 percent in 1994. The rate among youthful
arrestees spiked at 35 percent in 1994 and returned
to 14 percent in 1995. This dramatic drop in
detected use among youths suggests that the crack
epidemic may have immediately entered a decline in
1995, virtually skipping the plateau phase.
However, the return to 22 percent in 1996, instead
of a further decline, suggests that the magnitude
of both the peak and the subsequent decline may
have been anomalous. Data from future years will
confirm whether the crack epidemic in Indianapolis
entered a decline in 1995. 

Kansas City (Missouri)--Slow decline starting in
1989. The crack epidemic in Kansas City showed a
decline from 1988 to 1992. Although the overall
rate continued to hover around 45 percent, the rate
for youth declined from 40 percent in 1988 to as
low as 15 percent in 1991. The DUF program stopped
data collection in Kansas City in 1993.

New Orleans--Slow decline starting in 1990. Crack
use in New Orleans started to go down in 1990. The
overall rate peaked at 59 percent in 1989 and
appears to have declined slowly to 42 percent by
1996. However, this variation is not statistically
significant after controlling for birth cohort and
demographic effects.[10] The rate among youths
declined moderately from a high of 44 percent in
1989 to 29 percent in 1992, where it roughly
remained through 1996. 

Omaha--No significant epidemic. Omaha does not
appear to have experienced a substantial crack
epidemic from 1988 to 1996. The rate of detected
cocaine/crack use increased slowly from 11 percent
in 1990 to 20 percent in 1993, approximately where
it had been back in 1988. The rate then jumped to
28 percent in 1994. However, this increase resulted
from a change in DUF procedures. In 1994 the Omaha
DUF location first started interviewing female
arrestees, whose rate was about 10 percent higher
than the male rate.

Phoenix--Plateau. The crack epidemic in Phoenix was
in its plateau phase from 1987 to 1996, with the
rate among all arrestees hovering around a moderate
30 percent. The rate was slightly lower (24
percent) among youthful arrestees.

St. Louis--Plateau. Crack use expanded in St. Louis
from 1988 to 1989. The overall rate of detected 
cocaine/crack use increased solidly from 37 percent
in 1988 to 50 percent in 1989 and inched up to 55
percent by 1992 where it roughly remained through
1996. The rate among youthful arrestees rose to 44
percent in 1989 and settled back to a more stable
30 percent from 1993 to 1996.

San Antonio--No significant epidemic. The overall
rate of detected cocaine/crack use in San Antonio
exhibited a stable and low rate (about 28 percent)
from 1988 to 1996. The youthful rate was similarly
stable and slightly lower (about 19 percent).

Conclusion

This study confirmed that in much of the country
the crack epidemic was in decline by 1996. The
abundance of local data provided by the Drug Use
Forecasting program allowed for an extensive
analysis by major city. Such localized data are
essential to informed drug policy. In this regard,
the study confirmed how the popularity of any
particular drug, in this case cocaine/crack, can
vary widely across the country. A substantial
decline of at least 10 percent in the overall rate
of detected cocaine/crack use was observed in
Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles,
New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Jose, and
Washington, D.C. Other locations exhibited
substantial declines in detected cocaine/crack use
among youths, which suggested declines in the
overall rate were forthcoming in Birmingham,
Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Kansas City, Manhattan,
Miami, and Portland. At a few locations in the
interior of the country, the crack epidemic raged
on as strong as ever; this includes Atlanta,
Denver, Indianapolis, Phoenix, and St. Louis. Two
locations, Omaha and San Antonio, exhibited no
major evidence of having yet experienced a crack
epidemic.

Moreover, the study demonstrates the DUF program's
potential for monitoring a drug epidemic while it
occurs and an ability to distinguish four phases in
an epidemic. The existence of these phases and the
ability to monitor them can provide an important
basis for documenting the overall effectiveness of
drug abuse control policies. Currently, the impact
of a policy is typically measured by comparing drug
use in one year to that of the preceding year.
However, during the expansion phase, this measure
is unrealistic. The course of the epidemic itself
will result in dramatically increasing rates. Drug
abuse control policies need not be blamed for such
increases. Indeed, a constant rate or only a slight
increase between years could suggest that a policy
was very effective. Similarly, during the decline
phase the overall rate can be expected to go down
slowly across the years. A decline in the rate
would not necessarily indicate an effective policy
unless the decline also occurred among older
arrestees, who tend to be more persistent in their
drug use.

Notes

1. The 1996 DUF data included in this analysis are
not in their final, archived form. Minor changes to
the final 1996 data set, to be publicly released
later this year, are possible.

2. Several excellent ethnographic accounts of the
crack epidemic in New York City include Bourgois,
1995; Hamid, 1992; Seigel 1982; and Williams, 1989
and 1991. Johnson, Golub, and Fagan, 1995, provide
important findings about the nature of the epidemic
based on extensive interviews with 1,003 hard drug
abusers from inner-city New York (see "Careers in
Crack: Study Findings" on p. 11). 

3. The DUF program started data collection in
Manhattan in 1987, after the expansion phase had
ended. Golub and Johnson (1994a) estimated that
this phase lasted in New York City from 1984 to
1986 based on an analysis of reported year of first
use by serious crack abusers.

4. See Hamid, 1992; and Williams, 1991.

5. See Boyle and Brunswick, 1980; Clayton and Voss,
1981; Hunt and Chambers, 1976; and Johnson and
Manwar, 1991.

6. See Golub and Johnson, 1994b; and Johnson,
Thomas, and Golub, 1997.

7. Logistic regression and postdiction analysis were
also employed to determine if the observed changes
were statistically significant and substantial.
Golub, Hakeem, and Johnson (1996) provide complete
results of these statistical analyses and present
age-period-cohort analyses for each of the 24 DUF
locations based on the data collected from 1987
through 1994.

8. These determinations were based on a subjective
comparison of the time series for each DUF location
with the expectations from the hypothesized
structure of the crack epidemic.

9. The speed of the decline in a community depends
upon the number of established crack users and
their persistence in addition to other factors such
as the nature of the DUF sample. If youthful
arrestees constitute a substantial portion of the
DUF arrestees at a location, then the observed
decline in the overall rate of detected
cocaine/crack use will be faster.

10. See Golub, Hakeem, and Johnson, 1996.

11. See Johnson, Golub, and Fagan, 1995.


Selected references


Bourgois, Philippe. 1995. In Search of Respect:
Selling Crack in El Barrio. New York: Cambridge
University Press.

Boyle, J., and A.F. Brunswick. 1980. "What Happened
in Harlem? Analysis of a Decline in Heroin Use
Among a Generation Unit of Urban Black Youth."
Journal of Drug Issues 10:109-130.

Clayton, R.R., and H.L. Voss. 1981. Young Men and
Drugs in Manhattan: A Causal Analysis. Research
Monograph No. 39. Rockville, Maryland: U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, National
Institute on Drug Abuse.

Golub, Andrew, and Bruce D. Johnson. 1996. "The
Crack Epidemic: Empirical Findings Support a
Hypothesized Diffusion of Innovation Process."
Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 30(3):221-231.

Golub, Andrew, and Bruce D. Johnson. 1994a. "A
Recent Decline in Cocaine Use Among Youthful
Arrestees in Manhattan (1987-1993)." American
Journal of Public Health 84(8):1250-1254.

Golub, Andrew, and Bruce D. Johnson. 1994b. "Cohort
Differences in Drug Use Pathways to Crack Among
Current Crack Abusers in New York City." Criminal
Justice and Behavior 21(4):403-422 

Golub, Andrew, Farrukh Hakeem, and Bruce D.
Johnson. 1996. Monitoring the Decline in the Crack
Epidemic With Data From the Drug Use Forecasting
Program. Final Report to the National Institute of
Justice. 

Hamid, Ansley. 1992. "The Developmental Cycle of a
Drug Epidemic: The Cocaine Smoking Epidemic of
1981-1991." Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
24(4):337-348.

Hunt, L.G., and C.D. Chambers. 1976. The Heroin
Epidemic: A Study of Heroin Use in the U.S.,
1965-1975 (Part II). Holliswood, New York: 
Spectrum.

Johnson, Bruce D., and Ali Manwar. 1991. "Towards a
Paradigm of Drug Eras: Previous Drug Eras Help To
Model the Crack Epidemic in New York City During
the 1990s." Paper presented to the American Society
of Criminology. New York: National Development and
Research Institutes, Inc.

Johnson, Bruce D., Andrew Golub, and Jeffrey Fagan.
1995. "Careers in Crack, Drug Use, Drug
Distribution and Nondrug Criminality." Crime and
Delinquency 41(3):275-295.

Johnson, Bruce D., George Thomas, and Andrew Golub.
1997. "Trends in Heroin Use Among Manhattan
Arrestees From the Heroin and Crack Eras." In
Inciardi, J., Lana Harrison, and J. French. Heroin
in the Age of Crack-Cocaine. Thousand Oaks,
California: Sage. 

Seigel, R.K. 1982. "Cocaine Smoking." Journal of
Psychoactive Drugs 14(4):277-359.

U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of
Justice. 1997. Drug Use Forecasting: 1996 Annual
Report on Adult and Juvenile Arrestees. 
Washington, D.C.

Williams, Terry. 1991. Crackhouse. Reading,
Massachusetts:Addison-Wesley.

Williams, Terry. 1989. The Cocaine Kids: The Inside
Story of a Teenage Drug Ring. Reading,
Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley.

------------------------------

Findings and conclusions of the research reported
here are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the official position or
policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

------------------------------

The National Institute of Justice is a component of
the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes
the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims
of Crime. 

------------------------------

NCJ 165707

Issues and Findings

Discussed in this Research in Brief: An analysis of
1987-1996 data on booked arrestees' recent use of
cocaine/crack, as detected by urinalysis conducted
through the National Institute of Justice's Drug
Use Forecasting (DUF) program in 24 cities
nationwide. The data confirm the researchers' model
of a drug epidemic, composed of four distinct
phases: incubation, expansion, plateau, and
decline. 

Key issues: Standard epidemiological models and
observation of prior drug epidemics suggest that
the crack epidemic, which began in the 1980s, has
been following this natural course from incubation
to decline. DUF data, which documented the rates of
drug use for both juvenile and adult arrestees over
the study period, offer additional insight on age,
period, and cohort effects on cocaine/crack use.
Local factors can affect the development and course
of the crack epidemic, demonstrated by variations
across cities in the same region. Being able to
pinpoint the stage of the epidemic in particular
cities enables local criminal justice and health
officials to develop better strategies and deploy
their resources more effectively to respond to the
epidemic. 

Key findings: The crack epidemic has been following
this general pattern: 

o A subgroup of hard-core users of other drugs are
the first users of cocaine in a local area (the 
incubation phase), followed by a rapid expansion of
use among their more numerous friends and
associates (during the expansion phase).

o When the drug becomes popular, it is adopted by
youths coming of age (around age 18). At this time
the epidemic is well established (defining a
plateau phase). 

o When new young people coming of age no longer see
crack as the drug of choice, the decline phase sets
in. Experience in DUF cities has shown decline in
juvenile crack use to be the precursor to a more
general decline.

The crack epidemic appears to be in the decline
phase in all the cities on both the East and West
Coasts where DUF has been gathering urinalysis
data. For some (but not all) sites in interior
sections of the country, the epidemic is still in
its plateau stage. Two sites, Omaha and San
Antonio, show no signs of a crack  epidemic.
 
Target audience: Local law enforcement, court, and
correctional officials; public health officials; 
administrators of juvenile justice agencies and
youth departments; drug-crime researchers; and
local policymakers.

------------------------------

The Drug Use Forecasting Program
 
The Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program was
established in 1987 by the National Institute of
Justice to measure trends in illicit drug use among
booked arrestees in most large cities (or counties)
with a total population of at least 1 million, as
well as many smaller cities representing all
regions of the United States. The program collects
urine samples (along with self-reported
information) from about 225-250 male and 100 female
arrestees at each location, quarterly. The program
expanded to include 24 locations, and at some
locations a juvenile DUF program was also
instituted to track trends among arrestees charged
as juveniles. As of 1996, more than 250,000
arrestees had participated.
 
DUF samples are typically not representative of the
general communities where data collection occurs.
Given the drug-crime nexus, DUF data provide
excellent information about drug use among many of
the most serious drug abusers at each location.
Hence, this report discusses the crack epidemic
among arrestees. 

The EMIT urinalysis screen used in the DUF program
detects use of cocaine within the previous 48 to 72
hours but does not distinguish mode of use (e.g.,
snorting, smoking, or injecting). Hence, this
report refers to detected cocaine/crack use. Many
of the arrestees who tested positive for cocaine
are cocaine snorters and injectors. Presumably,
much of the increase in detected cocaine prevailing
during the observation period reflected the
increased popularity of crack. 
 
Information about self-reported drug use suggests
that most of the cocaine use detected by the DUF
program resulted from use of crack. Three-quarters
of the DUF arrestees aged 18 and above whose use
was detected and who admitted to recent cocaine use
(in any form) reported having used crack within the
previous 72 hours. On the other hand, only half of
the detected cocaine users admitted their use. It
is possible that cocaine snorters were
substantially less likely to admit recent drug use.

------------------------------

Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring

This year NIJ announces the transformation of DUF
into the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM)
program. For more than 10 years, DUF data have
played an  important role in constructing the
national picture of drug abuse and have been a
central component in studying the drug-crime nexus.
As DUF's successor, ADAM will be implemented in the
23 existing DUF sites. Moreover, increased funding
for the program has been requested to eventually
expand ADAM to 75 cities. 

While ADAM will retain many of DUF's features, it
will also incorporate new elements that will
significantly strengthen the value of the data
collected. New ADAM program elements will include
redesign of data collection and sampling
methodology that will provide policymakers and
practitioners with a rigorous basis from which to
assess local drug use trends and patterns and
evaluate local policies. 

If increased funding of ADAM is approved, NIJ is
proposing: 

o Development of local coordinating councils that
will generate local research projects for execution
at the ADAM sites and assume a prominent role in
disseminating the sites' findings to policy,
practitioner, and public constituencies.

o Establishment of an outreach program that will
annually collect one additional quarter of data
from a targeted population, such as a suburban,
rural, or Native-American jurisdiction.

------------------------------

Distinguishing Age, Period, and Cohort Effects

Three types of factors which can influence an
individual's drug use--age, period, and cohort
effects--can be identified from a two-way table of
detected cocaine/crack use as a function of
interview year and birth year. Exhibit 1 presents
such an age-period-cohort analysis for detected
cocaine/crack use among DUF-sampled Los Angeles
arrestees.

The variation across elements in a row indicates
how detected cocaine/crack use varied with age for
members of a birth cohort (individuals born in a
given year). Only 18 percent of the sampled Los
Angeles arrestees born in 1972 were detected as
recent cocaine/crack users in 1990, when they were
18 years old. The rate increased to 31 percent in
1992, when the cohort reached age 20, and hovered
around that level in subsequent years. These
findings suggest that many members of the 1972
birth cohort initiated regular use of crack between
ages 18 and 20 and few at subsequent ages. This is
an age effect. (Note: the identification of an age
effect is based on the extent to which DUF provides
a similar random sample from the 1972 cohort in
each year.)

In contrast to the increase in detected
cocaine/crack use observed among the 1972 cohort in
Los Angeles, detected cocaine/crack use among all
arrestees aged 18 and above declined from a peak of
60 percent in 1988 down to 49 percent in 1990. Two
factors could potentially account for this
phenomenon--a period or a cohort effect.
Informally, these could be distinguished as a
passing fad or a lasting fad specific to a
generation. A drug epidemic could potentially come
to a dramatic end if most users were to cease at
once. Indeed, many social phenomena follow such
fad-like behavior: Yo-yos and bell-bottom pants
were once widely popular but virtually disappeared
after a few years. Demographers call such a short-
lived fad a period effect.
 
A period effect would be identified in this
analysis as a consistent decline in detected
cocaine/crack use across the columns in Exhibit 1.
However, this was generally not the case. For
example, the rate of detected cocaine use among
arrestees born from 1955 to 1959 remained at about
64 percent from 1988 to 1990 and beyond. These
findings suggest that members of the 1955-1959
birth cohort who became cocaine/crack users tended
to persist in their habits through 1996, which is a
cohort effect.

Drugs, unlike yo-yos, are often habit forming. Much
research suggests that many individuals who become
involved with regular use of a hard drug tend to
persist as it becomes part of their lives. In a
similar manner, many baby boomers still listen to
their rock-and-roll records instead of switching to
rap or grunge, musical genres that have become
associated with members of a more recent birth
cohort called Generation X. Demographers call such
life long patterns a cohort effect. Unlike a period
effect, a cohort effect lasts for years as many
individuals in a generation persist in their
habits.
 
Multivariate statistical analyses were used to test
the relative importance of cohort and period
effects in explaining the observed decline in
detected cocaine use for those locations that
experienced a decline (see Golub, Hakeem, and
Johnson, 1996). These analyses confirmed that
differences across birth years in the rate of
detected cocaine/crack use were both substantial
and statistically significant. Most important,
these cohort effects could account for the full
extent of the declines observed. Moreover, in every
DUF location where a decline was observed, the
period effect was not statistically significant,
with one exception. The analyses suggested that a
substantial portion of individuals in Houston had
ceased their use of cocaine and crack.

Exhibit 1 indicates strong variation in detected
cocaine/crack use across birth cohorts. Only 29
percent of Los Angeles arrestees born in 1972 were
detected as cocaine/crack users, in strong contrast
to the 58 percent detected among the 1964 cohort
(right-most column). This cohort effect also
resulted in the dramatic decline in detected
cocaine/crack use among youthful arrestees from 47
percent in 1987 to 24 percent in 1996 (third row
from bottom)

------------------------------

Careers in Crack: Study Findings

Another study, initially funded by NIJ and
subsequently funded by the National Institute on
Drug Abuse, begun in 1987, consisted of interviews
with more than 1,000 crack users--released
arrestees, probationers and parolees, and
participants in selected drug treatment programs--
to gather information on the use of crack cocaine,
its impact on criminal careers, and the
effectiveness of criminal justice policy in
addressing the crack epidemic in New York City.[11]
The study found that: 

o Virtually all crack users had been frequent users
of other drugs, and most also had extensive
histories of prior drug abuse, drug selling, and
nondrug criminality.  

o Crack selling emerged suddenly as a new crime
category in 1983 and, by 1988, sales income from
crack surpassed that from other drugs.
 
o Crack was no more "instantly addicting" than
cocaine powder, heroin, or marijuana.

o Marijuana (but not alcohol) served as the key
gateway to further substance abuse. 

o In 1988 crack users were only slightly more
likely to commit aggravated assault and rape than
were noncrack drug users. Crack use, itself, did
not appear to be associated with initiation of
violent behavior.

o Female crack users did not initiate prostitution
subsequent to their starting to smoke crack.
However, existing prostitutes reported dramatically
higher frequency of prostitution following
initiation of crack.

o Punitive policies were routinely imposed on all
crack sellers and abusers, regardless of the
seriousness of the presenting offense or the extent
of the prior record.

o These tougher sanctions appeared to have no major
deterrent effect. Analysis indicated that the
severity of the sanction was not related to future
recidivism after controlling for variations in age,
minority status, prior time served, and prior
arrest rates.

The researchers concluded that a more appropriate
policy might emphasize drug prevention and
treatment in lieu of or in addition to any criminal
sanctions. 

-----------------------------

This research was primarily supported by grant 95-
IJ-CX0028 from the National Institute of Justice to
Andrew L. Golub and Bruce D. Johnson. Andrew Golub
is a principal research associate at the National
Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (NDRI).
His recent research examines drug use with an eye
toward guiding public policy. His recent book,
Decision Analysis: An Integrated Approach (John
Wiley and Sons, 1997), examines the process of
policy development. Bruce D. Johnson is the
director of the Institute for Special Population
Research and directs a pre- and postdoctoral
training program in drug abuse research at NDRI. He
has made numerous contributions in close to 30
years of research on drug use and abuse. A full
summary report of their research, Monitoring the
Decline in the Crack Epidemic With Data From the
Drug Use Forecasting Program, is available from the
National Criminal Justice Reference Service through
interlibrary loan or photo reproduction. Call
800-851-3420. Ask for NCJ 164659.