Shifting Drug Trade Is Reflected In Report

And while the report says that manufacturing jobs in the drug business are in short supply in Baltimore, this city remains one of the biggest and most important transportation hubs for drugs in the country.

The area's "extensive and diverse transportation infrastructure" connects the entire East Coast and leads out west, providing "drug traffickers with ready access to wholesale drug markets."

The report says that because police are targeting highways, dealers are using navigational devices to traverse "unfamiliar routes" or are simply sending boxes of drugs with delivery services. Not only can they watch the progress of their packages on the Internet; the report says that "if a shipment is delayed, they assume that law enforcement has intercepted it, and they refuse delivery to avoid arrest."

Like a business, the operators change tactics to meet new demands, satisfy the changing habits of consumers and counter new tactics by competitors. For example, the federal report says methadone overdoses are increasing in Baltimore from people abusing the drug designed to wean them off heroin, while the party drug Ecstasy, which used to be limited to teenage parties in the suburbs, is now being sold at "open-air drug markets" in Washington.