How Young Britons Obtain Their Drugs: Drugs Transactions at the Point of Consumption (From Illegal Drug Markets: From Research to Prevention Policy, P 59-81, 2000, Mangai Natarajan and Mike Hough, eds. -- See NCJ-187694)

• NCJ Number: 187697
• Author(s): Howard Parker
• Date Published: 2000
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Collected Work
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC. Crime Prevention Studies, Volume 11.

Annotation

The significant expansion in recreational drug use (marijuana, amphetamines, LSD, and ecstasy) by young people in Great Britain during the 1990's has had a normative effect in which gender and social class differences are now negligible and most young drug users are otherwise law-abiding and conventional.

Abstract

Based on five contemporary studies of adolescent drug use, night-clubbers, and new young heroin users, the author explains that, while young hard drug users rely on "real" drug dealers, the vast majority of young drug users do not. Instead, they rely on friendship and acquaintance chains and networks to "sort" each other out and to put physical and social distance between themselves and drug dealers from the criminal world. While this means a significant minority of young people in Great Britain are drug suppliers, in practice few are apprehended because drug transactions take place in the semi-private social space of the young people where they are largely condoned. Thus far, informal transactions at the point of consumption have kept recreational and heavy-end drug arenas apart. However, the author notes there are indications that purposeful heroin distribution and marketing are penetrating the recreational drug setting and are recruiting a new generation of susceptible heroin users. 22 references, 9 notes, and 1 figure