The Qualitative Research Method Center

presents:

Ethnographic Research, Agent-based Modeling, and Understanding Heroin Markets

Lee Hoffer, presenter

Illegal drug cartels are big business operations. However, at the local level where buyers and sellers transact, illegal drug markets function like non-linear (complex) systems. Here dealers and customers, participate in strategic transactions without explicit direction, central control, institutional support, complete information, or other factors that often characterize buying and selling in legal markets. For years, ethnography has been one of the most successful methods researchers have used to understand these activities. In small-scale in-depth longitudinal studies rapport can be established with participants who are inherently suspicious of outsiders. However, although these methods have produced highly descriptive and detailed accounts, it is often difficult to extrapolate the aggregated outcomes of drug dealing from these studies.

This presentation discusses efforts in combining ethnography and agent-based modeling (ABM) to scale-up, enhance, and facilitate a broader understanding illegal drug markets. Based on information from in-depth open-ended interviewing and participant-observation techniques, ABMs have been designed to reproduce the dynamic interactions of dealers and their customers. Although different types of simulations have been designed using this approach, this presentation will focus on a recent model incorporating “hidden" information costs and network dynamics that challenge neo-classical theories on the price of heroin. How do people addicted to heroin afford the drug long-term? Why is the price of heroin, unlike other drugs, inelastic to demand? Why is law enforcement so unsuccessful in reducing heroin consumption? In many ways, how heroin markets organize the behaviors of participants can answer these questions. Both advantages and limitations of this approach will be discussed.

Dr. Hoffer is an Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, Ohio, and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at CWRU School of Medicine. His research focuses on understanding the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of illegal drug use and addiction. Dr. Hoffer has conducted community-based studies of heroin, crack / cocaine, methamphetamine, club-drug, inhalant, and non-prescription opiate use, as well as trends in use. He is currently principal investigator of NIH and NSF grants combining agent-based modeling (ABM) and ethnographic research to better understand addiction and how illegal drug markets operate. Computational models from this work have investigated how heroin markets adapt to police interventions, influence patterns of addiction, and complicate interpreting market demand indicators.

More information, including Dr. Hoffer’s CV, is available on the Methods Center webpage:

http://blogs.cam.abtassoc.com/MethodsCenters/?page_id=2755

Tuesday November 26, 2013 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Locations

Capitol  Room, Bethesda; Ramp Room 3, Cambridge; and Hatteras Room, Durham

Telecommuters, please call in:

Domestic telecommuters: 1-888-446-7584

International telecommuters: 1-212-372-3742

Participant code:  8350358

To view the slides:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/208320801

Meeting ID: 208-320-801