Strategic Drug Threat Developments

• Methamphetamine abuse is increasing in the region, particularly among adolescents in northern Virginia and teenagers, young adults, and homosexual males involved in the club scene in the Washington, D.C., area. However, the overall demand for methamphetamine in the W/B HIDTA region is relatively low, far less than the demand for cocaine and heroin.
    
• Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) are increasing their drug trafficking activities in the W/B HIDTA region. Mexican DTOs and criminal groups already supply most of the marijuana available in the area. Further, they are increasingly transporting cocaine into the region as well as transporting large quantities of methamphetamine into the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia, adjacent to the HIDTA region.
   
• Midlevel and retail drug traffickers are using various techniques to gain market share in the region, including providing free heroin, using brand names to establish repeat customers and, as evidenced by the rise in incidents involving heroin/fentanyl combinations reported in 2006, offering "hot bags" of heroin combined with fentanyl to increase potency. Fentanyl was linked to at least 36 fatal overdoses in Maryland and 23 in Virginia in 2006.
   
• Abuse of powder and crack cocaine is increasing among young Caucasian professionals, blue-collar workers, and students in small cities, towns, and rural areas in the W/B HIDTA region.
   
• The demand for marijuana in the W/B HIDTA region is high and increasing. Marijuana is abused by every ethnicity, socioeconomic group, and age group. The popularity of high-potency marijuana, especially among younger abusers, is a key factor in driving the growth in demand.

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HIDTA Overview

The W/B HIDTA region encompasses four distinct population centers--the Baltimore Metropolitan Area, the District of Columbia, northern Virginia, and the Richmond metropolitan area. The region includes the following city and county jurisdictions: Maryland (the city of Baltimore and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Charles, Howard, Montgomery, and Prince George's Counties), northern Virginia (the city of Alexandria and Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties), the Richmond metropolitan area (the cities of Chesterfield, Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Petersburg, and Richmond and Hanover, Henrico, and Prince George Counties), and Washington, D.C.

Economic, demographic, and transportation factors render the W/B HIDTA region an increasingly fertile environment for drug trafficking and abuse. Many areas of the region are in the midst of an economic boom, resulting in population growth and increasing levels of disposable income for abusers to spend on drugs. At the same time, some areas, such as inner-city Baltimore, Richmond, and Washington, remain economically depressed, leading some residents to view drug trafficking as the only means of financial gain and drug abuse as a form of escape. Revitalization efforts in Washington, D.C., have included the demolition of several public housing projects, resulting in the dispersion of drug- and gang-related problems to suburban areas, particularly in Maryland. Between 1990 and 2000 (the year of the latest census), the population of the W/B HIDTA region increased at approximately the national rate and became more ethnically and racially diverse; these demographic trends have continued since 2000. In particular, a dramatic increase in the Hispanic population has enabled Colombian, Dominican and, increasingly, Mexican, Guatemalan, and Salvadoran criminal groups and gangs with ties to drug source and transit countries to operate more easily. Drug trafficking in the region is facilitated by an extensive transportation infrastructure that includes highways--Interstate 95, in particular--railway and bus systems, two international seaports, and four international airports with passenger and cargo services.

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