From “Social Supply” to “Real Dealing”

• Author: Gary R. Potter,Matthew Taylor
• Published date: 01 October 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0022042612474974
• Date: 01 October 2013
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal of Drug Issues

43(4) 392 –406

© The Author(s) 2013

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DOI: 10.1177/0022042612474974

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474974JOD43410.1177/0022042612474974Journal of Drug IssuesTaylor and Potter

1University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

2London South Bank University, London, UK

Corresponding Author:

Gary R. Potter, Department of Social Sciences, London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, London, SE1 0AA,

UK.

Email: potterg@lsbu.ac.uk

From “Social Supply” to “Real

Dealing”: Drift, Friendship,

and Trust in Drug-Dealing Careers

Matthew Taylor1 and Gary R. Potter2

Abstract

This article reports on an empirical study into a group of drug dealers supplying cannabis, ecstasy,

cocaine, ketamine, and other drugs in and around a small English city. It reveals a market that

is not overly structured or hierarchically controlled, and certainly not dominated by organized

crime or characterized by violence. Dealers involved had often drifted into “real” dealing from

backgrounds in “social supply.” However, despite an increase of their dealing activity (and of

their profits), they still maintained the “social supply” values of friendship and trust as the key

elements to relationships with suppliers and customers. Escalation of drug dealing did not seem

to be accompanied by any wider escalation in criminality or involvement with organized crime.

Keywords

drug markets, drug dealing, social supply, drift

Introduction

There is a persistent popular image of drug dealers as evil criminals peddling in and preying on

the misery of addiction in the pursuit of profit (Coomber, 2006, 2010). Such individuals—

whether operating as low-level drug pushers or high-level “Mr Bigs”—are seen, in this popular

view, to operate in drug markets structured along an organized-crime version of the pyramid

model of commodity markets (see, for example, Potter, 2010, pp. 35-40) “controlled by heinous,

evil individuals or groups that rule with a rod of iron” in which “[v]iolence, mistrust and fear

are seen as [the] primary characteristics” (Coomber, 2010, p. 10).

Academic studies are, however, increasingly challenging this perception. Although it is said

that there is a shortage of empirical research into drug distribution (Pearson, 2007), there is an

increasingly large number of studies on drug markets, with one review focusing (only) on upper

level trafficking citing nearly 300 studies (Dorn, Levi, & King, 2005). The problem is that there

is great variation in drug markets. As Bean (2008) points out, drug trafficking involves “large-

scale operations, which can and often do cross national boundaries, as well as the small-scale

syndicates which distribute drugs at a local level” (p. 140). Potter (2009) makes the point that

“[d]rug trafficking occurs globally, but markets are ultimately local” (p. 51), going on to argue

Article