The Structural Relationship between Drug Use, Drug Dealing, and other Income Support Activities among Women Drug Sellers

Abstract

Interviews were conducted with 156 women drug sellers from two New York City neighborhoods with high concentrations of drug selling, neighborhoods that had active heroin markets in the 1970s and were sites for the growth of cocaine and crack markets a decade later. Structural equations models were estimated to test the relationships over two time periods between drug use and income generation activities including drug dealing, crime, legal work, and public transfers. Dependent variables included self-reports of income and expenses together with criminal career parameters. Results showed that the effects of prior drug expenses on subsequent crime, drug, and work incomes were nonsignificant. Overall, drug dealing appears to suppress future non-drug crime activity. Prior drug selling has a facilitating effect on later drug use and significant negative effects on subsequent crime income generation and legal work. Selling also helped women avoid the types of street hustling, including prostitution, and other crimes that characterized women's income strategies in earlier drug eras. Drug use careers are influenced less by earlier drug use patterns than by income growth from dealing that appears to increase opportunities to expand drug use.