13 - Drug Markets

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In any particular country, the overall drug market might be thought of as comprising a number of submarkets. Pearson and Hobbs (2001) identified what they refer to as a four-tier classification of drug markets: importers, wholesalers, middle-market brokers, and retail dealers. Dorn and Hunter (1992) suggested a seven-tier typology based on the type of ‘firms’, or groups of individuals, involved in drug trafficking (trading charities, mutual societies, sideliners, criminal diversifiers, opportunistic irregulars, retail specialists, and state-sponsored traders). Lupton et al. (2002) described two types of drug markets operating in deprived neighborhoods (central place markets and local markets), and Edmunds, Hough, and Urquia (1995) identified two types of market operating at the local level (open and closed). Dorn, Levi, and King (2005) described drug trafficking in terms of individual motives (political, financial, and risk). Hence, researchers to date have tended to use typologies as a means of describing the nature of drug markets.

Although these typologies provide useful descriptive information about different aspects of drug markets, none provides a picture of the drug market as whole. Further, little is known about when these typologies apply and when they do not apply. It is likely that methods of drug trafficking and dealing vary markedly in terms of organization and operation over time and location. In some locations or times, small organized crime groups might cover almost the entire range of operations from importation to street dealing (Brookman, Bennett, and Maguire, 2004).