Ten dollars for a “balloon” of Mexican “black tar heroin.”
Ninety dollars for a gram of ketamine.
Two hundred dollars for a peyote plant.
These are the prices for drugs in the L.A. area, according to a list that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) may have accidentally sent to L.A. TACO.
Marked “law enforcement sensitive,” the list includes wholesale, as well as “street,” prices for roughly a dozen varieties of uppers, downers, hallucinogens, and prescription medications.
The prices are based on “undercover narcotic operations” led by the L.A. CLEAR Watch Center, a coalition of local law enforcement agencies.
The drug price list was sent to an L.A. TACO reporter working on a story about the LAPD appearing to inflate the price of methamphetamine seized during drug raids.
Multiple harm reduction experts, meth users, and meth addiction outreach volunteers told L.A. TACO that the drug usually costs around $20-$40 per gram on the streets. Meanwhile, the LAPD’s estimates for the price of methamphetamine—a notoriously inexpensive drug that can be made from household chemicals—have exceeded $150 per gram when broken down to a per gram cost.
Law enforcement agencies are notorious for inflating the valuations of drugs by using a “street value” price rather than a wholesale value, but the LAPD’s estimates for the price of meth are significantly higher than even those numbers cited by other local law enforcement agencies.
When an L.A. TACO reporter reached out to LAPD Chief Michel Moore about this story and asked what he thought of the estimations, Chief Moore defended the valuations and CC’d several LAPD officers on his response.
“Attached is the price list provided by HIDTA [the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas program] as it relates to current trends,” Lillian Carranza, LAPD Assistant Commander, wrote in response to Chief Moore’s email, seemingly without realizing that an L.A. TACO reporter was included on the email chain. “However, the street price is determined by many factors (purity, potency, supply, demand, wholesale, mid level, distance to source etc.).”
A gram of meth costs $20, according to HIDTA’s report, and a pound costs around $700.
The LAPD commander declined to confirm if she intended to send us the report.
The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program (HIDTA) is a Regan-era initiative created by congress to provide assistance to local law enforcement “operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions of the United States.”
According to HIDTA’s price list, a single fentanyl pill can cost as little as 30 cents when purchased in quantities of 50,000 pills or more. While a single fluid ounce of Codeine or Gamma Hydroxybutyrate (also known as “the date rape” drug) cost upwards of $95 per fluid ounce.
Undercover fentanyl pill operations have increased in the last year nearly 50 percent, according to the report.
The drug price list also notes that “kilos of ecstasy powder (Molly) were reported for the first time this quarter.” And it also includes “NEW!” prices for quarter pounds of meth ($300-400) and half ounces of shrooms ($120).
The report also includes a link to a survey.
“Thank you for participating in our LA CLEAR/LA HIDTA Intelligence Product Survey. Your feedback is important to us for improving our services. There are only three questions plus room for comments at the end. It should only take a minute.”
The survey asks users if they found the “Intelligence Document” to be “effective” or “useful” and leaves room for additional comments.
Check out the Los Angeles HIDTA second quarter drug price list below.
