Level 1 Markets
- Open markets where drugs
are sold on the street in residential areas.
- Open markets where drugs
are sold in public areas such as stations, bus stations, cafes or
clubs.
- Closed markets where
sales are made only to people known to the suppliers at pre-arranged
meetings, either on the street or in houses
- Markets open to new
callers but accessed through arranged meetings
- Off street locations
where drugs are both bought and sold and used, such as crack houses,
which may be open or closed
In practice these can be subdivided into more complex patterns by
factors such as:
- Type of drugs sold,
- The supply routes to the
street sellers
- Familial connections
involved
Furthermore, markets can
also be distinguished by other crime that is closely related to them
and often available within them. This includes for example drug houses
where crack is sold, there is handling of stolen goods and access to
sex workers, who may or may not be connected to dealers.
Closed drug markets can be
accessed through other markets, such as for sex, which may act as
their formal introduction.
House based selling can also
be subdivided. There are sellers who:
- Sell directly from their
own homes
- Operate the business from
their own homes through mobile phones but sell in an adjacent area
- Operate from somebody
else's home, often a person under the influence of the seller. This
might include young women dependent in some way on the seller –
perhaps by being the parent of children or working in prostitution
for them; or by being vulnerable through mental health or youth
Places where people sell can
also be places where people also use drugs and engage in other
criminal activity.
The best example of this is
the so-called crack house. The use of crack often takes place in
houses where people also buy crack, as well as engage in other
criminal activity, and perhaps live or stay for extended periods (see
Burgess 2003). Whilst heroin users do use in groups, this phenomena is
almost unique to crack, and especially to primary crack dependent
users.
Characteristics of
dealers
Dealers are not easily
identified in groups and there is elasticity as to how people operate
within markets – people may take different roles at different times
and with different people; however;
- Importers tend not to be
drug dependent, at least not on heroin or crack
- Importation follows two
main routes, via Turkey or via Russia, with inevitable involvement
from members of both communities in its importation and wholesaling
in the UK
- They may vary their
commodities to include women and children, guns or tobacco
- Wholesalers at local
level may well have strong links to other criminality
- There is a strong
relationship between cocaine importation, crack production, and the
Jamaican community
- The production of crack
is often done by importers
- Street level dealers may
well have dependencies of their own, including in heroin
A number of individuals may
be connected to the supply operation, including those who act as
lookouts, referrers, runners and enforcers. These can include: -
-
Very young people who can act
as deliverers of drugs.
-
Sex workers who can direct
their clients to sources of drugs.
-
Those who help enforce the
debts and territory of a given operator.
Not all suppliers will use
or require this sort of operation. Drugs sold in clubs (notably dance
drugs in dance environments) and pubs may be sold on by sellers at the
very bottom of the selling chain and their sales may be to peers and
friends; the same is true to some degree of the lowest tier of
cannabis retail.
Characteristics of buyers
The range of people using
markets will depend on how the drug is sold, what drugs are available,
how accessible it is, what barriers there are to buying, the level of
surveillance and so on. In general terms the more open a market the
wider the range of sellers, including a large number of irregular
buyers purchasing drugs for recreational use, through to highly closed
markets where the majority of people buying are hard core dependent
users with pre-knowledge of the dealer.
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