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Markets for illicit drugs are frustratingly resilient, but periodically there are significant disruptions, such as the recent Australian heroin drought during which purity-adjusted prices at least tripled and overdoses fell [...], This article raises the question of how drug policy should respond to take advantage of market disruptions. A simple mathematical model of the spread of drug use is adapted to a two-stage problem in which drug prices are abnormally low or high in the first stage, and the policy planner is allowed to adjust the level of drug control funding continuously over time. Optimal policies for this model are derived using the methods of optimal control theory. They suggest that whether it is better to increase or decrease drug control efforts in response to a market disruption can depend on the initial number of users and, hence, on the stage of the epidemic, as well as the length and intensity of the drought or glut. Although simple prescriptions are not possible, the potential for adaptive policies to improve outcomes is illustrated. KEY WORDS: DNSS point, drug epidemic, drug policy, market disruption, supply chains, treatment, two-stage optimal control.

Two empirical regularities concerning illicit drug use seem hard to reconcile. Initiation ebbs and flows over time, sometimes dramatically, but drug problems tend only to get worse or at best [...], An empirically-derived model of national drug initiation is combined with a compartment model of trends in illicit drug use parameterized for Australia. Numbers of initiates seem to oscillate over time but with fluctuations whose aplitude diminishes over time. Lags and interpersonal variation in drug use careers smooth those oscillations for measures of problem use and total drug-related social cost, so even abrupt changes in initiation barely ripple the trajectory of drug-related social cost. Hence, the benefits of interventions that successfully disrupt initiation may be 'hidden in plain sight' by being spread broadly over time so that they leave only the faintest finger-print detectable by before-and-after comparison. Thus, the absence of clear drops in drug-related problems does not imply that an upstreaum ntervention such as prevention or supply disruption did not produce substantial social benefits. More generally, drug use and related problems are often perceived of as stubborn, even intractable. Some of that perception stems from real limitations in the effectiveness of drug-control interventions. However, inertia inherent in the evolution of drug use can make even cost-effective interventions appear weak (and detrimental interventions appear benign). KEY WORDS: Dynamic modeling, drugs, epidemic, compartmental models, cost-effectiveness, evaluation.

Incarceration for drug-law violations in the United States has grown tenfold since 1980 (Blumstein and Beck, 1999; Greenberg and West, 2001; Caulkins and Chandler, in submission), contributing substantially to the [...], Data from the Survey of Inmates in Federal and State Correctional Facilities, 1997 are used to estimate the number of drug-law violators in U.S. prisons solely because of their drug use and not because of involvement in drug distribution or other offenses. The estimates (5,380 to 41,047) are much lower than would be implied by naively assuming that conviction for drug possession implies no involvement in drug distribution. Implied imprisonment risk per year of use is also low, perhaps an hour per year of use for marijuana, in part because expected time served is half that for those clearly involved in drug distribution.

Since 1972 the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) has collected data on the incidence of emergency room episodes related to drug abuse. The system was designed to serve a number [...]