Valdez Avelardo, Kaplan Charles
professor at the Graduate College of Social Work, University of Houston and director of the Office for Drug and Social Policy Research.
J Drug Issues. 2007 Fall;37(4):893-918. doi: 10.1177/002204260703700408.
Research on drug trafficking has not been able to discern the exact nature of illegal drug markets and the relationship between their individual and group participants. This article delineates the role of Mexican immigrants and Mexican-American participants involved in the stratified drug market of South Texas. This article synthesizes ethnographic materials drawn from two previous National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) studies in order identify the different types of drug distribution behaviors that occur within the groups, the differentiated roles of individuals, the organizational framework, and most significantly, the processes that link market participants to others outside of the drug market. This illegal behavior can be interpreted as an adaptive mechanism that is a direct response to the marginal economic status imposed by macro socio-economical background factors. As well, we conclude that the specific foreground factors of the opportunities offered by the context, culture, and proximity of the U.S./Mexico border and invitational edges explain this behavior. There are both parallels and particular differences between the South Texas case and the structuring and functioning of informal legal and illegal markets that are characteristic of other economically disadvantaged communities.
对毒品贩运的研究未能洞悉非法毒品市场的确切性质及其个人和群体参与者之间的关系。本文阐述了墨西哥移民和墨西哥裔美国人参与者在南得克萨斯州分层毒品市场中所扮演的角色。本文综合了此前两项美国国家药物滥用研究所（NIDA）研究中的人种志资料，以确定群体内部出现的不同类型的毒品分销行为、个体的不同角色、组织架构，以及最重要的是，将市场参与者与毒品市场之外的其他人联系起来的过程。这种非法行为可被解释为一种适应性机制，它是对宏观社会经济背景因素所造成的边缘经济地位的直接反应。此外，我们得出结论，美国/墨西哥边境的背景、文化、临近性以及诱人条件所提供的机会等特定前景因素解释了这种行为。南得克萨斯州的案例与其他经济弱势社区特有的非正式合法和非法市场的结构及运作之间既有相似之处，也有特殊差异。
