Effects of Prohibition and Decriminalization on Drug Market Conflict

• Date: 01 August 2016
• Author: Richard Wright,Scott Jacques,Frank Gemert,Richard Rosenfeld
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12218
• Published date: 01 August 2016

RESEARCH ARTICLE

DRUG MARKET CONFLICTS IN

AMSTERDAM

Effects of Prohibition and Decriminalization

on Drug Market Conflict

Comparing Street Dealers, Coffeeshops, and Caf´

es

in Amsterdam

Scott Jacques

Georgia State University

Richard Rosenfeld

University of Missouri—St. Louis

Richard Wright

Georgia State University

Frank van Gemert

VU University Amsterdam

Research Summary

To reduce individual and social harms, most nations prohibit certain psychoactive

drugs. Yet, prior scholarship has suggested that prohibition reduces illicit drug sellers’

access to law and thereby increases predation against and retaliation by them. Noprior

study, however, has directly tested that theory by comparing drug sellers of different legal

statuses operating in a single place and time. This study analyzes rates of victimization,

legal mobilization, and violent retaliation in three retail drug markets in Amsterdam,

the Netherlands: the legally regulatedalcohol trade of caf´

es, the decriminalized cannabis

market of “coffeeshops,” and the illegal street drug market. Results from interviews

We thank Henry Brownstein and the anonymous reviewers for their input on how to improve the article. This

work was supported by the National Science Foundation, Division of Social and Economic Sciences, Law and

Social Sciences Program NSF ID #: 0819090, and by the University of Missouri Research Board. We gratefully

acknowledge the research facilities and collegiality afforded us by the Netherlands Institute for the Study of

Crime and Law Enforcement. Direct correspondence to Scott Jacques, Department of Criminal Justice and

Criminology, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 3992, Atlanta, GA 30302-4018 (e-mail: sjacques1@gsu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12218 C2016 American Society of Criminology 843

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 3

Research Article Drug Market Conflicts in Amsterdam

conducted with 50 sellers in each market indicate, as expected, that illicit drug dealers

have the highest ratesof victimization and violent retaliation and the lowest rates of legal

mobilization. Contrary to expectations, we find coffeeshops experience less victimization

than caf´

es and have similar rates of violent retaliation and legal mobilization.

Policy Implications

Our findings suggest that state regulation of drug markets affects victimization and

conflict management of sellers, but the relationship does not seem to be linear. Prohibi-

tion undercuts the state’s regulatory capacity by producing zones of virtual statelessness

in which formal means of dispute resolution are unavailable, and thus, victimization

and retaliation are more common. At the other extreme is laissez faire regulation,

which may make sellers more likely to address problems only after they occur (instead of

preventing their occurrence). The Dutch government originally instituted coffeeshops

as a harm-reduction method meant to separate the market for cannabis from that of

hard drugs. The policy also seems to work well when it comes to reducing victimiza-

tion, perhaps by encouraging the use of preventive measures by coffeeshop owners and

employees. The Dutch experience offers lessons for drug policy reforms elsewhere.

Keywords

drug market, victimization, social control, prohibition, decriminalization

An unprecedented rise in the formal control of drug use and distribution took place

during the 20th century (Musto, 1999; Zimring and Hawkins, 1992). Premised

on a belief that psychoactive substances reduce the well-being of individuals and

communities, governments worldwide developed prohibitions and regulations to prevent

drug-related harms (MacCoun and Reuter, 2001). Antidrug policies and enforcement prac-

tices, however, also have harmful effects (Kleiman, 2009; Kleiman, Caulkins, and Hawken,

2011; Zinberg, 1984). In theory, prohibitionist policies may reduce illicit drug traders’

access to formal means of conflict management (i.e., social control), making them attractive

targets to predators and reliant on violent retaliation (Goldstein, 1985; Jacobs, 2000).

Despite some empirical evidence to support this theory, no prior study has directly

tested it by comparing drug sellers operating in a single place and time who differ in le-

gal status. Nor has research on this topic analyzed the full spectrum of legal statuses: legal,

decriminalized, and prohibited. This study investigates rates of victimization, legal mobiliza-

tion, and violent retaliation in three retail drug markets in Amsterdam, the Netherlands: the

legally regulated alcohol trade of caf´

es, the decriminalized cannabis market of “coffeeshops,”

and the illegal street drug market. By drawing on data from interviews with 50 participants

in each market, we test the hypothesis that drug sellers’ legal status varies inversely with rates

of victimization and violent retaliation but directly with the propensity to mobilize law.

844 Criminology & Public Policy

Jacques et al.

Wefirst review the conceptual and theoretical context of our study; prior research on vic-

timization and conflict management among drug sellers; and the legal environment in which

Amsterdam’s caf´

es, coffeeshops, and street dealers operate. We then describe our data and

methods; present our findings; and discuss their implications for theory,research, and policy.

Victimization and Social Control

Victimization is an offense against one actor perpetrated by another. Both violent and

property victimization are examined in this study. Social control, or conflict management,

is the handling of a perceived wrongdoing, such as victimization (Black, 1976, 1998).

Formal social control, or law (broadly defined), is the handling of a grievance by legal

or political authorities (Black, 1976). Formal control may be initiated proactively by

government officials or reactively when a victim or third party makes a police report (Black,

1980). Of special interest in this study is victim-initiated legal mobilization, which is one

of “the process[es] by which a legal system acquires its cases” (Black and Mileski, 1973: 6).

Informal social control entails handling a grievance without involving legal or

other state officials (Black, 1976, 1998). The most infamous type of informal control is

retaliation—a kind of self-help involving “unilateral aggression” (Black, 1983). Nonviolent

responses to victimization include negotiation, where disputants seek to resolve the conflict

through discussion; avoidance, where the victim responds by reducing contact with the

offender; and toleration, where the victim takes no action (Black, 1998). We consider each

of these responses in the current study.

Leviathan and Virtual Statelessness

Although this article’scontextual focus is drug market conflict, its broader contribution is to

theory and research on the relationship among access to law, victimization, and retaliation.

This is a long-standing topic of study. In Leviathan, Hobbes (1985 [1651]) proposed that

“during the time men live without a common Power to keep them all in awe, they are in that

condition which is called Warre; and such a warre, as is of every man, against every man”

(p. 185). In such a condition, violence is widespread and “the life of man [is] . . . nasty,

brutish, and short” (p. 186). A strong central authority may reduce violence among citizens,

however, by monopolizing the legitimate use of physical force (see also Elias, 2000 [1939];

Weber, 1978 [1922]). In theory, this state-held monopoly makes for a more peaceful

society by using means of formal control to deter predation and retaliation (Hobbes, 1985

[1651]). In support of this thesis, mortality data from archaeological, ethnographic, and

other sources show that, on average, the violent death rate of persons living in nonstate

societies is four to ten times greater than that of those living in state societies (Pinker, 2011;

see also Cooney, 1997; Courtwright, 1996; Rosenfeld and Messner, 1991; Roth, 2009).

At first glance, this thesis by Hobbes (1985 [1651]) may seem to be of little use in

explaining variation in modern-day violence because few places remain beyond the reach of

state control. But it remains relevant for distinguishing between “actual statelessness” and

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