Introduction
Since 1992, the Office of National
Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has
published the Pulse Check, a source for
timely information on drug abuse and
drug markets. The report aims to
describe hardcore drug-abusing populations,
emerging drugs, new routes of
administration, varying use patterns,
changing demand for treatment, drug-related
criminal activity,
and shifts in supply and
distribution patterns. Pulse Check regularly
addresses four drugs of
serious concern: cocaine,
marijuana, heroin, and
methamphetamine.
Additionally, the current
issue provides information
on the emerging
problem of"ecstasy"
(methylenedioxymethamphetamine,
or MDMA)
and other club drugs.
The Pulse Check is not
designed to be used as a law enforcement
tool but rather to be a research
report presenting findings on drug
use patterns and drug markets as
reported by ethnographers, epidemiologists,
treatment providers, and law
enforcement officials. With regards to
race and ethnicity, just as the
National Household Survey on Drug
Abuse and other national data sources
report findings by race and ethnicity,
sources contributing to the Pulse
Check are asked to describe the age,
ethnicity, and gender of illegal drug
users and those who sell drugs and
any changes in these characteristics.
The information provided to Pulse
Check reflects the observations of the
sources, and their descriptions are
purely for determining the size,
scope, and diversity of the drug
problem. The intent of the Pulse Check has been and continues to be
merely to describe patterns in illicit
drug use and illicit drug markets that
are emerging in local communities.
As in the past, the Pulse Check data
collection methodology has involved
telephone discussions with three types
of sources: law enforcement officials;
epidemiologists and ethnographers;
and treatment providers from selected
sites across the country. Additionally,
the current Pulse Check issue reflects
the latest in ONDCP's ongoing effort
to enhance the project and keep up
with the changing nature of the
Nation's drug abuse situation in
several ways:
New sources plus past sources
to provide a more comprehensive
snapshot of hardcore drug
abuse problems—As detailed in
the Methodology appendix,
new sources were
recruited based on a
range of selection criteria
and identification
strategies. To preserve
continuity—since much
of the information is
qualitative and relies on
the source's observations
of patterns and
trends many of the
selected individuals are
also past Pulse Check
sources. Data collection
enhancements— Past Pulse Check
discussion guides were enhanced
with probing questions to elicit
more explanations and insights
into the data and
policy-relevant issues, as further
described in the appendix. A"new look" for the report—
The new report format was
designed to visually integrate
the qualitative and quantitative
information gathered.
By contacting professionals from
different disciplines—ethnography/
epidemiology, law enforcement, and
treatment—a rich picture of the
changing drug abuse situation
emerges. Though this approach offers substantial strengths in timeliness and
depth, Pulse Check is not a measure
of the prevalence of drug abuse or its
consequences. As an anecdotal source
of information, any interpretation or
conclusion drawn from Pulse Check
must be viewed carefully and in conjunction
with other more quantifiable
direct and indirect measures of the
drug abuse problem.
More specifically, several of the
limitations of Pulse Check are briefly
discussed below.
Pulse Check is limited to a report
on the drug abuse situation in 20
specific sites throughout the
Nation. Though considerable
effort was made to select sites
across a broad range of geographic
areas, including Census regions
and divisions, urban and rural
States, racial/ethnic coverage, and
high intensity drug trafficking
areas, Pulse Check cannot be
viewed as a national study, and
information cannot be reasonably
aggregated up to a national level. Of the 80 sources identified
and recruited across the three
disciplines, 74 provided information
for this Pulse Check issue. The
information presented in this report
is based solely on the observations
and perceptions of those 74 individuals.
These individuals may not
be knowledgeable about every
aspect of the drug abuse situation
in their sites, and they may have
biases based on their experiences
and exposures.
Information from treatment sources
is particularly susceptible to variance
because some facilities target specific
populations. Furthermore, treatment
providers from methadone and non-methadone
programs are likely to
have very different perspectives on
their communities' drug problems
because their respective clientele differ
in the nature of their drug problems.
It is for this reason that two
treatment sources were selected from
each of the 20 sites—one from a
methadone program, and one from a
non-methadone program. Taken
together, all four sources at each site
provide a richer picture of the drug
problem's nature.
Current Sources and Reporting
Periods
The current report includes
information gathered during
September and October 2000 from
telephone conversations with 74
sources, representing 20 sites across the various regions of the country.
These individuals discussed their
perceptions of the drug abuse
situation as it was during the first 6
months of 2000 and in comparison
to the same 6 months in 1999.
The law enforcement sources who
provided information include 19
narcotics officers from local police
departments, field office agents of the
Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA), and representatives of High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas
(HIDTAs). The epidemiologists and
ethnographers are 20 researchers
associated either with local health
departments, university-based
research groups, or other community
health organizations. Some of those
20 individuals are qualitative
researchers who employ ethnographic
techniques to obtain observational
data directly from the drug user's
world; others are epidemiologists
who access both qualitative and
quantitative data. The treatment
sources are 34 providers (from 19
non-methadone programs and 16
methadone programs) randomly
selected for each site from the 1998
Uniform Facility Data Set (UFDS).
These sources offer a wealth of
information that, when taken
together, provides a comprehensive
snapshot of drug abuse patterns in
communities across the country.
Further, these individuals provide
expertise that can alert policy makers
to any short-term changes or newly
emerging problems concerning specific
drugs, drug users, and drug sellers.
The appendices at the end of this
report provide a list of these sources,
describe the methodology used to
select them, and discuss the content
of the approximately 1-hour
conversations held with them.
Enhancements to Pulse Check
Some of these cities are past Pulse
Check sites, some are new ones.
These sites reflect several enhancements:
greater geographic diversity
than in the past; distribution across the four census regions;
representation of both rural and
urban areas; and overlap with
other sources such as ONDCP's
High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area (HIDTA) sites.
Use and Interpretation of Pulse
Check Information
Any contradictory reports within an
individual site are not necessarily a
Pulse Check limitation. Just as the site
sampling methodology was designed
to reflect the country's geographic
and population diversity, recruiting
four sources per site was incorporated
into the design to reflect diversity
within each of the 20 sites. For example,
a law enforcement source in one
site might perceive cocaine to be the
community's most serious problem,
while an ethnographic source at that
same site might consider the most
serious problem to be heroin. And
they would both be right—because
each might come in contact with
different populations or each might
deal with a specific geographic
neighborhood.
