scholarly journals Review of "Market Dynamics and Systemic Violence: A Longitudinal Examination of Market Penetration, Entry Deterrence, and Excess Capacity in the Illicit Drug Market" as submitted to Journal of Drug Issues (JOD-20-0075)

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Entry Deterrence ◽  
Market Dynamics ◽  
Excess Capacity ◽  
Market Penetration ◽  
Systemic Violence ◽  
Longitudinal Examination

Market Dynamics and Systemic Violence: A Longitudinal Examination of Market Penetration, Entry Deterrence, and Excess Capacity in the Illicit Drug Market

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-158
Author(s):  
Christopher E. Torres ◽  
Stewart J. D’Alessio ◽  
Lisa Stolzenberg
Keyword(s):  
Drug Market ◽  
Market Penetration ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Lethal Violence ◽  
Drug Selling ◽  
Systemic Violence ◽  
First Time ◽  
Longitudinal Examination ◽  
Drug Sellers

The nexus between lethal violence in the drug market and drug-selling behavior remains a topic of interest among social scientists. Although the current body of literature demonstrates strong empirical evidence of systemic violence, questions still endure as to the underlying causal mechanisms responsible for this violence. This study uses 10 years of prosecution data aggregated at the county level to investigate whether drug-related homicide is predictive of first-time drug-selling offending. Results from a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis suggest that new entrants are using lethal violence to penetrate the illegal drug market. As drug-related homicides increase, the percent of first-time offenders being prosecuted for a drug-selling offense increases markedly. This relationship persists even after controlling for non–drug-related homicide. This finding suggests that lethal violence is being used primarily by new drug sellers, possibly to help them gain entry into a competitive drug market.

Auras of Detection: Power and Knowledge in Drug Prohibition

2021 ◽  
pp. 009145092110354
Author(s):  
Jennifer J. Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Epistemic Authority ◽  
People Who Use Drugs ◽  
Drug Supply ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Drug Checking

Drug checking is an evidence-based strategy for overdose prevention that continues to operate (where it operates) in a legal “gray zone” due to the legal classification of some drug checking tools as drug paraphernalia—the purview of law enforcement, not public health. This article takes the emergence of fentanyl in the U.S. drug supply as a starting point for examining two closely related questions about drug checking and drug market expertise. First, how is the epistemic authority of law enforcement over the material realities of the drug market produced? Second, in the context of that authority, what are the socio-political implications of technologically advanced drug checking instruments in the hands of people who use drugs? The expertise that people who use drugs maintain about the nature of illicit drug market and how to navigate the illicit drug supply has long been discounted as untrustworthy, irrational, or otherwise invalid. Yet, increased access to drug checking tools has the potential to afford the knowledge produced by people who use drugs a technological validity it has never before enjoyed. In this article, I engage with theories of knowledge production and ontological standpoint from the field of science, technology, and society studies to examine how law enforcement produces and maintains epistemic authority over the illicit drug market and to explore how drug checking technologies enable new forms of knowledge production. I argue that drug checking be viewed as a form of social resistance against law enforcement’s epistemological authority and as a refuge against the harms produced by drug criminalization.

Is there fentanyl contamination in the Australian illicit drug market?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Voce ◽  
Tom Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Illicit Substance ◽  
The Past

This research investigates fentanyl use among police detainees participating in the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia program. Three percent of respondents tested positive to fentanyl and/or norfentanyl during urinalysis, and 11 percent reported lifetime fentanyl use. Nonprescribed fentanyl use was associated with use of and dependence on other drugs in the past 12 months. Three percent of all detainees believed they had used an illicit substance mixed with fentanyl. No detainees who tested positive to fentanyl reported using the drug in the past 12 months. These findings suggest fentanyl contamination may be occurring in the Australian illicit drug market.

Review of Synthetic Cannabinoids on the Illicit Drug Market

2019 ◽  
pp. 273-319
Author(s):  
Mahmoud A. ElSohly ◽  
Sohail Ahmed ◽  
Shahbaz W. Gul ◽  
Waseem Gul
Keyword(s):  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Synthetic Cannabinoids ◽  
Drug Market

scholarly journals Emerging Synthetic Fentanyl Analogs

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold E. Schueler
Keyword(s):  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Forensic Toxicology ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Medical Examiner ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Blood Concentrations ◽  
Fentanyl Analogs ◽  
Femoral Blood ◽  
Drug Traffickers ◽  
Death Investigation

Hundreds of synthetic substances have been introduced into the illicit drug market over the last ten years, but none of these drugs has had as poisonous a consequence as the emergence of the synthetic fentanyl analogs. Initially, pharmaceutical grade or illicit fentanyl was mixed with heroin, allegedly to boost the potency of the heroin. Then, the amounts of fentanyl spiked gradually increased until the proportion of fentanyl was greater than the proportion of heroin. Ultimately, many overdose cases began consisting of only fentanyl. The emergence of numerous synthetic fentanyl analogs, including acetylfentanyl, butyrylfentanyl, acrylfentanyl, furanylfentanyl and β-hydroxythiofentanyl, which are manufactured in China, were made available to the illicit drug traffickers over the Internet. In July of 2016, the most potent commercially available opioid, carfentanil, started appearing in illicit drug submissions and medical examiner death investigation cases in Northeast Ohio. Postmortem femoral blood carfentanil concentrations are in the picogram per milliliter (pg/mL) range, which is extremely low, and tests the limits of detection for most analytical forensic toxicology laboratories. The interpretation of these low carfentanil blood concentrations in antemortem and postmortem specimens is made difficult due to the overlap in the concentrations between these specimen types. The presence of these powerful synthetic fentanyl analogs presents a challenge to forensic toxicology laboratories preparing to analyze for these substances.

scholarly journals Comprehensive Analytical Methods of the Synthetic Cannabinoids Appearing In the Illicit Drug Market

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kei Zaitsu ◽  
Munehiro Katagi ◽  
Keiko Nakanishi ◽  
Noriaki Shima ◽  
Hiroe Kamata ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Methods ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Synthetic Cannabinoids ◽  
Drug Market

Drug Market Criminology

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Moeller
Keyword(s):  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Competitive Equilibrium ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Transaction Cost Economics ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Criminological Research ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Abstract Level

There is a divide between economic and criminological research on illicit drug markets. Economists have focused on modeling markets at an abstract level, while criminologists have focused on offending in individual street-level marketplaces. This article combines the economic and criminological research on illicit drug markets through the lens of social embeddedness theory. The analysis concerns how participants reduce the uncertainties that follow from the illegality of the product, the lack of reliable information on product quality, and the trustworthiness of the trading partner. Social embeddedness theory is reconcilable with transaction cost economics but puts more emphasis on the importance of longer term interpersonal relations and trust. Using this framework provides a middle-range interpretation for the economic irregularities observed in drug markets: how prices deviate from the competitive equilibrium and how distributors develop and maintain interpersonal trust and balance competitiveness with security concerns.

scholarly journals The relationship between drug price and purity and population level harm

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catilin Hughes ◽  
Shann Hulme
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Rapid Review ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Market Impacts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Related Harm

In illicit drug markets, the price and purity of drugs change frequently. While it is well known that purity-adjusted price affects drug use, impacts on other outcomes are less clear. This rapid review examines the relationship between price, purity and seven population level measures of drug-related harm and any differences across three drug types. With a few exceptions, it found an inverse relationship between purity-adjusted price and drug-related harm, with higher purity-adjusted price associated with less drug-related harm, and lower purity-adjusted price associated with increased harm. This shows the value of price and purity data for predicting drug market impacts and the importance of improving price and purity data collection and analyses, particularly in Australia.

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