Abstract
This study illustrates how the social structure of the heroin market can impact the physiology of heroin addiction and how heterogeneity of addiction patterns can be shaped by market dynamics. We use a novel agent-based modeling (ABM) approach to simulate possible neurophysiologic functions based on the collective self-organizing behavior of market agents. The conceptual model is based on three components: biological, behavioral, and social. Biological components are informed by mechanistic animal studies, behavioral component relies on studies of real-life human experiences with addiction, and social aspects are based on market research that describes the transactional and decision-making processes associated with the distribution of drugs within local drug markets. Using ABM, this paper unifies these three components to simulate how heroin addiction patterns are generated and shaped through heroin markets. The market model is based on data from an ethnographic study of a local heroin market and includes customers (users), street and private dealers, street brokers, police, and other potential market actors. Behavioral data is based on converting narrative descriptions and fieldwork observations into formal states and transitions, and a simple model of addiction process for the drug users is based on published peer-reviewed literature. Analysis of model-based simulations reveals “binge/crash,” “stepped,” and “stable” patterns in customer addiction levels.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This paraphrases a question from the RBA (Risk Behavior Assessment) questionnaire (National Institute on Drug Abuse 1993), commonly administered by professional interviewers and considered the gold standard in community-based research studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Other instruments use different questions but similarly remain oriented to a specific timeframe.
References
Adler PA (1985) Wheeling and dealing: an ethnography of an upper-level drug dealing and smuggling community. Columbia University Press, New York
Agar M (1973) Ripping and running. Academic Press, New York
Agar M, Reisinger HS (2002) A heroin epidemic at the intersection of histories: the 1960s epidemic among African Americans in Baltimore. Med Anthropol 21:189–230
Agar M, Bourgois P, French J, Murdoch O (1998) Heroin addict habit size in three cities: context and variation. J Drug Issues 28:921–940
Ahmed SH, Bobashev GV, Gutkin BS (2007) The simulation of addiction: Pharmacological and neurocomputational models of drug self-administration. Drug Alcohol Depend 90:304–311
American Psychiatric Association (2000) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV-TR. Author, Washington
Bernard HR (1988) Research methods in anthropology. Sage, Newbury Park
Bourgois P (1997) In search of respect: selling crack in El Barrio. Cambridge University Press, New York
Curtis R, Wendel T (2000) Toward the development of a typology of illegal drug markets. In: Natarajan M (ed) Illegal drug markets: from research to prevention policy. Criminal Justice Press, Monsey, pp 121–152
Fetterman D (1998) Ethnography: step by step. Sage, London
Gutkin BS, Dehaene S, Changeux JP (2006) A neurocomputational hypothesis for nicotine addiction. Proc Natl Acad Sci 103:1106–1111
Hamid A (1992) The development cycle of a drug epidemic: the cocaine smoking epidemic of 1981–1991. J Psychoact Drugs 24:337–348
Hammersley M, Atkinson P (1993) Ethnography: principals in practice, 2nd edn. Routledge, New York
Hanson GR, Venturelli PJ, Fleckenstein AE (2006) Drugs and society, 9th edn. Jones and Bartlett, London
Hoffer L (2006) Junkie business: The evolution and operation of a heroin dealing network. Wadsworth, Belmont
Hoffer LD, Bobashev G, Morris RJ (2009) Researching a local heroin market as a complex adaptive system. Am J Community Psychol 44:273–286. doi:10.1007/s10464-009-9268-2
Isaac M, Janca A, Sartorius N (1994) ICD-10 symptom glossary for mental disorders. Division of Mental Health, World Health Organization, Geneva
Johnson BD, Goldstein PJ, Preble E, Schmeidler J, Lipton DS, Spunt B, Miller T (1985) Taking care of business: the economics of crime by heroin abusers. D.C. Heath and Company, Lexington
Kerr T, Small W, Wood E (2005) The public health and social impacts of drug market enforcement: A review of the evidence. Int J Drug Policy 16:210–220
Koester SK (1994) Copping, running and paraphernalia laws: contextual variables and needle risk behavior among injection drug users in Denver. Human Organ 53:287–295
Koester SK, Anderson KT, Hoffer L (1999) Active heroin injectors’ perceptions and use of methadone maintenance treatment: cynical performance or self-prescribed risk reduction. Subst Use Misuse 34:2135–2153
Koob GF, Le Moal M (2005) Neurobiology of addiction. Elsevier, New York
Musto D (1987) The American disease: origins of narcotic control. Oxford University Press, New York
National Institute on Drug Abuse (1993) Risk behavior assessment, 3rd edn. National Institutes of Health, Rockville
Patton MQ (1980) Qualitative evaluation and research methods, 2nd edn. Sage, London
Preble E, Casey J (1969) Taking care of business: The heroin user’s life on the street. Int J Addict 4:1–24
Singer M (2006) Something dangerous: emergent and changing illicit drug use and community health. Waveland Press, Long Grove
Zarkin GA, Dunlap LJ, Hicks KA, Mamo D (2005) Benefits and costs of methadone treatment: results from a lifetime simulation model. Health Econ 14(11):1133–1150
Zule WA, Desmond DP, Neff JA (2002) Syringe type and drug injector risk for HIV infection: a case study in Texas. Soc Sci Med 55:1103–1113
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hoffer, L., Bobashev, G., Morris, R.J. (2012). Simulating Patterns of Heroin Addiction Within the Social Context of a Local Heroin Market. In: Gutkin, B., Ahmed, S. (eds) Computational Neuroscience of Drug Addiction. Springer Series in Computational Neuroscience, vol 10. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0751-5_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0751-5_11
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-0750-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-0751-5
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)