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A recent change in Danish cannabis control policy has had significant implications for the structure of the retail-level cannabis market in Copenhagen. A process of restructuring following an crackdown on 'Pusher Street' has involved at least four people getting shot and killed in what police describe as struggles for market shares. Combating the retail cannabis market was a top three priority for the Copenhagen police. The shift in policy started in 2004 when possession for personal use was up-penalized, from a discriminatory warning to an obligatory fine of 70 euros which was quadrupled in 2007. The law was immediately followed by an extensive police crackdown on Christiania's open retail-market. Christiania has had a cannabis market for 32 years. As cannabis use rates rose throughout the '90's the market flourished. On a given day it's estimated turnover was around 20 k, about twothirds of the total market in Copenhagen. On the 16th of May 2004 police raided 'Pusher Street' and arrested 60 dealers and their helpers along with 20 people accused of forming an organized lookout corps. After the initial raid police implemented a zero-tolerance zone in the area and targeted users in a deterrent effort issuing a total of 4834 fines in a year. Maintaining the zero tolerance zone has so far involved 12 big confrontations with the inhabitants of Christiania. 114 police officers have been injured and 29 formal complaints of police conduct have been lodged with the State Attorney. Following the crackdown the cannabis market adapted by dispersing and applying new methods for retail dealing.

Police mobilisation is a first step in the judicial process and an important source of information on offending. Whether victims mobilise police is affected by their assessment of its utility. Victims who are criminals, such as drug dealers, are known to face a different cost–benefit scenario than law-abiding persons. Dutch 'coffeeshops' are a unique type of dealer. They operate in a grey area, allowed by the government to sell a prohibited drug, cannabis, so long as they comply with a set of regulations. Little is known about their mobilisation of police in response to victimisation, including how it is affected by the rules governing their business. We explore this issue with qualitative data collected from personnel of 50 coffeeshops in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We analyse how they think about the potential benefits and costs of asking the police for help post victimisation. In many ways, their thought process is similar to that of most any victim, but they also consider the potential negative ramifications of inviting police to their door. We conclude by discussing the implications for future research, regulation and drug control broadly, and coffeeshops specifically.

Fentanyl analogs are synthetic opioids used for pain treatment and palliative care, which are also sought after by drug users for their psychoactive properties. Clandestinely produced fentanyl has caused an overdose crises of unprecedented scale in the United States. In Sweden, the retail purchase, possession, and use of some analogs are legal, providing opiate users with a legal alternative, until the process of scheduling is finished. The continuous process of scheduling and introduction of slightly modified variants implies that there is much uncertainty regarding the potency and quality of newly introduced analogs. We examine user perceptions of fentanyl analogs in a thematic analysis of the public internet forum, Flashback, from 2012 to 2019. In 24 threads on fentanyl analogs, posters shared and discussed information on the emergence of new analogs, their desirability and prices, adverse health effects, and eventual scheduling.

AbstractPrices in illegal drug markets are difficult to predict. Based on qualitative interviews with 68 incarcerated drug dealers in Norway, we explore dealers' perspectives on fair prices and the processes that influence their pricing decisions. Synthesized through economic sociology, we draw on perspectives from traditions as different as behavioral economics and cultural analysis to demonstrate how participants in illicit drug distribution base their pricing decisions on institutional context, social networks, and drug market cultures. We find that dealers take institutional constraints into consideration and search for niches with high earnings and low risks. The use of transactions embedded in social networks promotes a trusting form of governance, which enables strategic network management and expedient distribution but also uncompetitive pricing. Finally, dealers' pricing decisions are embedded in three different cultures narratives: business, friendship, and street cultural stories, with widely varying implications for prices. Our findings demonstrate how an economic sociology of illicit drug distribution can extend insights from behavioral economics and cultural studies into a coherent criminology of illegal drug markets.

A growing share of illicit drug distribution takes place using cryptomarkets that use encryption and anonymization technologies. The risks of law enforcement intervention and violence are lower here than in off-line traditional drug markets, but with the technological innovations follow new opportunities for stealing and fraud. The sites themselves fall prey to theft and hacking attempts, administrators abscond with users' funds, and malicious sellers regularly cheat buyers. In this study, we explore the types of theft and fraud that occur on cryptomarkets using multiple data sources: formalized community resources (e.g., guides, tutorials), ethnographic observations of user forums, thematic identification of forum posts using unsupervised text classification, and an expert interview. We find system-based violent predatory resource exchange similar to robberies and process-based fraudulent resource exchange similar to rip-offs. We discuss these offenses conceptually as extensions of common drug-related crimes in the digital world. This contributes to the research on how cryptomarkets work and can improve crime-prevention efforts.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have a profound impact on the lives of high-risk drug users and on the services responding to their needs in at least two important ways: first, through the restrictive measures introduced to mitigate the spread of the virus and, second, as a result of extensive economic downturn. Currently there is great uncertainty as to the future intensity and duration of the pandemic. In addition, the lessons we have been able to learn from previous economic downturns may be of limited applicability to the current situation, which differs in a number of significant respects. Experience nevertheless suggests that the potential consequences for drug users' health and well-being may be severe. The ongoing uncertainty serves to underline the importance of close monitoring of the drug situation and preparing flexible and innovative solutions to be able to meet new challenges which may arise.