Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
The invention and widespread use of the Internet, smartphones, and other digital technologies have had a major impact on society, transforming social interaction, economics, politics, culture, and identity (Brubaker, 2020). While some early analysis separated “cyberspace” from “real life,” this bifurcation was quickly viewed as obsolete, at least from the early 2000s (Thomas, 2006). Instead, social scientists and theorists generally agree that digital technologies have been fully merged with everyday life (Fussey and Roth, 2020). However, this insight seems to have largely escaped drug market research, which either studies physical markets, such as street (McAuley et al., 2022), private indoor, and semi-public markets (Sandberg, 2012), or digital markets, such as app-based markets (Moyle et al., 2019) and online cryptomarkets (Décary-Hétu et al., 2016). Critiques aside, previous studies have provided important information about online and offline drug markets. While the lines between the digital and physical are certainly blurred, some markets are more online and others more offline. As such the market categories have been helpful to study drug distribution. Past studies, for instance, highlighted how buyers’ and sellers’ perspectives about risk and reward impact where drugs are bought offline (May and Hough, 2004) and how Facebook offers open market possibilities online with a wide selection of sellers, buyers, and drugs, whereas one-on-one messaging applications offer more private and secure market connections (Bakken and Demant, 2019). Yet, a lot is arguably gained from merging the online and offline in drug market research, as this would reveal the intimate entanglement of digital and embodied relationships (Brubaker, 2020; Stuart, 2020).
Recent studies have explored how online drug trading is shaped by “offline” geographic locations (Norbutas, 2018). Some studies have highlighted the need to consider both online and offline factors when studying cryptomarkets (Giommoni et al., 2024). Despite working to soften the lines between online and offline factors, these studies do not completely erase the boundaries of or conspicuously combine digital and real life. A recent publication by Korshøj and Søgaard (2024) comes the closest to merging the online and offline. They established the multichannel approach of hybrid drug dealing for sellers when drifting between social media and in-person dealing. Therefore, in this study, we advocate for a more integrated approach in examining illegal drug markets for a more accurate understanding of drug purchase and dealing in contemporary digital society. We claim that, rather than thinking of drug markets as “online” or “offline” or as the offline merely influencing the online and vice versa, drug market action is best understood as taking place on a social relational digital-to-physical continuum.
In this study, we merge two datasets based on qualitative interviews with participants of Norway's illegal drug markets, with one dataset focusing on physical drug markets and the other on digital drug markets. Across these two projects, we identify three markets: digital, hybrid, and physical. To underscore the flexibility and complexity of such markets, we place the three divisions on a continuum between the digital and the physical. We further explore these markets through economic sociology to highlight the relational and contextual factors of economic choices (Aspers and Dodd, 2015). Specifically, we highlight the impact of social networks, trust, and culture on individual participation in the digital–physical continuum. Factors such as existing relationships, risk perception, drug and street culture, and social codes bring every market relationship into a different location, including bars, parties, Snapchat, the darknet, and others. Moreover, the social relational and contextual factors impact participants’ actions on the continuum, thereby pointing to the enduring importance of the social factors in the study of illegal drug markets, both online and offline, and demonstrating the continued relevance of utilizing economic sociology to study markets.
Economic sociology: economic markets with social relationships
Economic sociologists understand markets as fundamentally social (Aspers and Dodd, 2015) and economic phenomena as better “understood by approaching them from sociological perspectives” (Beckert, 2007: 6). Economic sociology often draws on three distinct theoretical traditions: networks theory, organization theory, and cultural sociology (Swedberg, 1997). In this study, we zero in on three interrelated concepts that are often used in economic sociology: social networks, trust and risk, and culture.
Social networks, and the related concept of embeddedness, are central to economic sociology (Granovetter, 1985). Embeddedness follows a tradition of studying markets as networks (White, 1981). The argument is that actors do not make economic decisions outside social contexts but that these are embedded in “concrete, ongoing systems of relations” (Granovetter, 1985: 487). To act, people depend on their social networks and on the larger historical, political, and cultural context in which they operate. Moreover, a purely rationalist or instrumentalist approach to economic action (as is common in economic theory) takes away from the fact that much economic action, such as information sharing about employment, is passed on informally through social relationships in noneconomic settings. An economic sociological approach to markets, therefore, calls attention to how markets exist in social networks and how people pursue a mixture of economic and social motives while engaging in production, consumption, or distribution (Granovetter, 2002).
Another central concept of economic sociology that underscores the sociality of economic action is the interconnected importance of risk and trust. Economic sociology argues that, in markets, actors are confronted with profound coordination problems, such as conflicting interests, defraud, and other risks, which cause uncertainty that leads to market action maximizing only utility (Beckert, 2007, 2009). Scholars sometimes distinguish between certainty, risk, and uncertainty when discussing choice in markets. Certainty implies having enough information to know the consequences of a choice. With risk, actors know enough to assess expected outcomes, but with uncertainty, outcomes are unknown. Empirical studies show that actors may gather information to move from uncertain to risk, thus making more informed decisions (Carruthers, 2013). As market actors invariably face risk and uncertainty, they are dependent on the individuals they transact with (Beckert, 2007). Moreover, trust cannot be attained solely by moral standards or institutional arrangements because individuals are unlikely to trust that these mechanisms will completely protect them from trouble. As a result, people generally prefer to transact with known and trusted individuals, highlighting how risk and trust connect to social relationships and networks to explain economic behavior (Granovetter, 1985).
Yet economic sociologists warn against focusing too narrowly on social relationships at the expense of other factors that would allow for a more complete explanation of economic activities (Beckert, 2007; Krippner, 2001). Markets should be viewed as fully social institutions, “reflecting a complex alchemy of politics, culture, and ideology” (Krippner, 2001: 782). To broaden our perspective, a cultural approach underscores the importance of culture, that is, the “shared meanings and their representations in objects and practices,” in economic relationships and as a foundation for economic activities (Zelizer, 2002: 108). The culture of a market dictates economic activities’ “rules of engagement,” allowing the actors to predict how they and others should act (Aspers, 2010). Finally, because cultures are often the same in different markets but markets can be culturally distinct, we can speak of a “general” and “specific” market culture (Aspers, 2009, 2010). Along with social networks and risk and trust, culture is central to understanding illegal drug markets in contemporary digital society to embrace the complexity of a market's social reality.
Illegal drug markets: a continuum between online and offline spaces
Social relationships are crucial in drug markets and are the basis for the theoretical conceptualization of illegal drug markets. Retail-level drug markets are often segregated as “open” and “closed” (Natarajan and Hough, 2000) or “public” and “private” (Ruggiero and South, 1997) markets. Open or public markets represent street markets where everyone can buy drugs in certain locations without any previous interaction. Semi-public markets represent in-between arenas, such as bars or apartments, to enter which you require specific knowledge but where most people can buy drugs (Sandberg, 2012). Closed or private retail markets consist of social supply or social networks (Coomber and Moyle, 2014; Taylor and Potter, 2013). Literature on social supply networks underscores that social relationships are more valued than profit-maximizing behavior in such markets (Werse and Bernard, 2016), where social status and friendships are often important goals (McCarthy, 2002).
For decades, drug market research has discussed how communication technology developments change drug markets. For example, one study examined how the introduction of pagers and cell phones in the 1990s/2000s turned drug markets into closed markets, which drastically changed the social relationships needed for participation (Barendregt et al., 2006). Cell phones opened drug dealing avenues beyond street corners or specific geographical areas (Søgaard et al., 2019) and for a wider population, including the middle- and upper-class, university students, and other relatively “conventionally oriented” individuals and groups (Jacques and Wright, 2015; Salinas, 2018). Some scholars have used the concept of “distance decay” to show how geographical distance affect the number of direct connections between drug market actors (Gundur, 2022). However, the importance of geographical proximity is somewhat lower now with the later advancement of online markets for drug dealings, making it possible for people to buy drugs internationally without any existing social connections in the markets. In particular, cryptomarkets revolutionized drug markets by proving to be relatively stable platforms where open trade involved feedbacks and ratings rather than social networks and connections (Demant et al., 2018). By the end of the 2010s, the focus shifted toward using smartphone-enabled social media and messaging applications to supply and access illegal drugs (Moyle et al., 2019). Social media use in drug dealing involves the apps people use for everyday communication with family and friends (Moyle et al., 2019).
Trust and risk represent two closely intertwined but equally central factors in drug market research. The risk of participating in an illegal market influences people's social relationships and communication (Gambetta, 2009; Moeller and Sandberg, 2017), further determining the form and shape of drug markets, such as the degree of openness (May and Hough, 2004; Natarajan and Hough, 2000). Drug market actors stash drugs at various locations throughout the city and deliver drugs by car to avoid risk. On the upper levels, drug cartels reduce risk by undermining government authority with corruption and confront governments control with violence. Likewise, through intimidation and violence, cartels reduce risk of affiliated gangs turning on them and keep the media and the public from interfering. Large drug trafficking organizations also offload risk by delegating retail distribution to subcontractors (Gundur, 2022).
Risk perception is crucial in digital markets. For example, encryption allows for enhanced security from law enforcement (Tzanetakis and South, 2023); however, new technologies leave users vulnerable to new forms of theft and fraud (Moeller et al., 2017). While the anonymity of cryptomarkets can be tempting to some, it may not be a good option for others (Bakken and Demant, 2019). Risk perceptions limit social relationships in cryptomarkets, for example, when people prefer local sellers on international market platforms owing to the risk of detection when shipping drugs internationally (Décary-Hétu et al., 2016).
Trust is closely connected to risk evaluation within social relationships, and any social relationship depends on trust to function (Sztompka, 2006). High risk and uncertainty within illegal markets place high importance on trust (Moeller, 2023). As a result, there is often a correlation between degree of trust and level of access to a drug-dealing community (Gundur, 2022). The costs of finding new partners to cooperate with differ across levels of drug dealing (Goldstein, 1985; Reuter and Caulkins, 2004). In retail-level drug dealing, participants have a wide selection of partners, making trustworthiness important to make buyers go through with the purchase. Buying from a stranger poses the biggest risk because the social ties are weak. Here, one's interest and willingness to take the risk of trusting the other person within the specific situation becomes crucial (Cheshire et al., 2010; Mayer et al., 1995; Schilke et al., 2021). Showing competence, expertise, and the ability to complete the assignment (Jeffries and Reed, 2000), and honesty and commitment (Peters et al., 1997) are important characteristics of trustworthiness. Drug market actors who voluntarily or involuntarily leave the drug business must also re-establish their trustworthiness through a trial period to previous social relations, demonstrating that access to drug market relations is an ongoing process (Adler and Adler, 1983).
Central to competence and expertise are cultural knowledge and skills. For instance, Anderson (2000) introduced the concept of “code of the street” to emphasize the need for networks and social control (through violence) to be successful in the illegal drug trade. The importance of street culture in illegal drug markets was further elaborated in the concept of “street capital,” pointing to the cultural competencies needed to succeed, such as the ability to avoid the police, make good deals, or present oneself as a dangerous “gangster” (Sandberg and Pedersen, 2011). However, drug market culture varies across markets. For instance, the “code of the street” is more important in street and higher-level markets, whereas among people in closed, social network markets, a nonviolent cannabis culture, focusing on altruism and non-commercial values, dominates (Sandberg, 2012). Similarly, in some upper-level offline drug markets, actors enter the drug business by adhering to a drug subculture and building social relationships (Adler and Adler, 1983). The possibilities to purchase and sell drugs online challenge the importance of street cultural skills to some extent. Street culture and networks are still important, but dealing drugs to online participants requires more “mainstream” cultural skills, such as general technological skills, and formal (e.g., education) and informal (e.g., use of emojis) digital cultural competencies (Bakken et al., 2023). Some studies on cryptomarkets show that offline norms such as violence and intimidation are replaced with norms of safety and courtesy (Martin, 2023). Hence, some digital drug market cultures resemble the culture of social network drug markets because both markets value mainstream competencies, such as customer service and cordiality (Tzanetakis and South, 2023).
In this study, we build on the importance of social relationships within illegal drug markets to challenge the existing online/offline divide in drug market research. Social factors such as network, trust, and culture will be used to discuss the complexity of drug market participation across two differently angled datasets. By merging the interviews of physical and online drug market participants, including both buyers and sellers, we bridge the two separate markets. We present a continuum of three market types, namely digital, hybrid, and physical, which are represented within the datasets. The continuum underscores the fluidity in market participation within each relationship and offers an organized way to present the different spaces of contemporary drug markets.
Methods and data
Two unrelated data collection and analysis were conducted—one by Berger on Oslo's illegal drug markets and one by Bakken on the use of social media applications to sell and purchase drugs in Norway. However, after completing the data collection and analysis, we discussed the findings and realized that there was substantial overlap, for instance, related to where and how drugs were being bought and sold.
The first dataset comprised face-to-face interviews conducted by Berger in 2019–2021 with 65 youth and young adults with experience in Norway's illegal drug markets. The second dataset comprised online interviews conducted by Bakken and colleagues in 2017 with 35 people from Norway's illegal drug markets. Both projects sought to gain a holistic understanding of their respective markets and were comprised of individuals with experience in using, buying, and selling several types of illegal drugs. Researchers in both projects asked open-ended questions about drug purchase and drug dealing activities (e.g., where and how they sold drugs, how they avoided risks, and broadly about their choices and motivations in illegal drug markets).
In the project on illegal drug markets in Oslo, Berger recruited participants through fieldwork in the city, which can be divided into two parts. First, he recruited youth and young adults with experience using, buying and selling drugs through fieldwork with drug and crime prevention workers. Second, he drew on his extended social network in the city of Oslo for recruitment. Interviews typically lasted for 1–3 hours and were subsequently transcribed verbatim and anonymized. Participants had various roles in Oslo's illegal drug market. Their experiences ranged from using and buying cannabis relatively infrequently to using, buying, and selling several illegal drugs, such as cannabis, cocaine, and MDMA, on a daily or weekly basis at a mid to high level. Their ages ranged from 16 to 35 years, with most being around 18 years old.
In the project regarding the use of existing social media applications (e.g., Snapchat) used for buying and selling drugs in Norway, Bakken and colleagues recruited participants by observing who were involved in the public social media drug trade and via study posts in online discussion forums. This was part of a Nordic study on drug dealing on social media. The first phase of the study included a three-month-long online ethnography where Bakken and local student assistants observed various digital platforms searching for drug-related interactions. In the second phase, Bakken and colleagues used Wickr, an encrypted messaging application, to conduct interviews in an environment safe for the interviewees and interviewers. A total of 106 interviews were conducted, of which 35 were in Norway, which were included in this study. Of these participants, 34 were male and one was female. Their average age was 20.3 years but ranged from 17 to 33 years (with three participants refusing to share their age). When asked about their main drug market activity, 20 said that they were only buying drugs, eight were selling drugs, and seven were doing both.
After several rounds of reading and discussing the interview materials, we understood that the purchase and sale of drugs happen on a continuum between digital and physical relationships. Despite being two separate studies focusing on physical and digital drug market life, both physical and digital locations and factors were central in the studies. We reread our interview material, meeting frequently throughout the analysis process to discuss the codes and their definitions. The codes were decided upon by going back and forth between the interview material and relevant empirical and theoretical scholarship. Furthermore, we found that the participants’ actions on this continuum were contingent on several factors. The data revealed that the most influential factors that explained how drugs were bought and sold were social networks, risk and trust, and the broader drug culture. In the analysis section, we draw equally on data from both projects.
The project on Oslo's drug markets was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data, and the project on social media dealings in Nordic countries was approved by the Academic Ethics Committee of Copenhagen University. The ethics committees in other Nordic countries were also consulted. We informed the participants that their participation was voluntary. Transcripts were anonymized and stored safely. In-text quotes were translated from Norwegian to English. We use pseudonyms when quoting participants.
Digital–physical drug market continuum
By analyzing the data, we found three markets: digital, physical, and hybrid (Figure 1).
The digital–physical continuum of illegal drug markets.
The first market we identified was the digital market, where people ordered drugs online without any physical contact. Digital markets with no in-person contact show how drug markets have become dramatically reconfigured due to emergent technologies (Berry, 2018). A primary example is crypto-markets, encrypted chats, or darknet markets, where drugs are delivered through postal services with no face-to-face interaction. Sindre, a mid to high-level dealer, explained his process and its benefits, “So, I went online and bought what I wanted. I guess, I ordered DMT, LSD, mescaline 2C-B, 1 and MDMA, and some other stuff.” The upsides of ordering online were evident according to Sindre. He did not have to interact with people he did “not know in the streets,” and online customer reviews ensured that he could get the “best quality substances for the most competitive price.” He used bitcoin as a payment method, which lowered the chances of detection and punishment by law enforcement. Like our findings here, recent studies also show how digital markets are characterized by low levels of violence, less chances of detection by law enforcement, and by customers being able to receive competitive deals on drugs (Berry, 2018).
The social environment of cryptomarkets consisted of online identities and participants on the market pages and related forums. However, gaining and maintaining trust and knowing how to securely maneuver the purchase and sale demanded a set of social activities, such as communicating with others as a part of the transaction and remain updated on the latest reviews and rumors of scamming sellers. Therefore, while these participants demonstrated participation on the digital end of the continuum, the social relational factors remained important for the transactions (Beckert and Wehinger, 2013).
One way of understanding decisions made among participants when they acted on the digital end of the continuum is through Granovetter's (1985) embeddedness approach. Granovetter (1985: 489) argues against both an undersocialized (institutional arrangements) and oversocialized (generalized morality) conception of economic action. Important for our analysis is that the embeddedness approach rather focuses on the ongoing systems of social relations and networks that generate trust and discourage malfeasance. The embeddedness perspective works at an intermediate level connecting microlevel interactional processes to macrolevel structural arrangements. In online drug markets, an example of a mechanism on the intermediate level shaping trust and choice are online reviews (Moeller, 2023).
The second market was the hybrid market, where people used digital technology to facilitate communication that led to face-to-face drug transactions. Theodor, a high school student who used and sold sporadically, explained: It's very often Snap [Snapchat] actually. I’ll show you [opens Snapchat and shows the screen]. It's pretty straightforward really. As soon as you get a plug [informal way of saying drug dealer], and as soon as you add him on Snap … so where they operate is stories. So, check this out, here you have my buddies blah blah blah, and here is a plug, “Active from 14 to 19.” He is basically saying that he is working from two until seven. You see that vegetable? That symbolizes green [marijuana]; chocolate symbolizes brown [hashish]. Snow, that's cocaine.
In this hybrid market, participants’ initial contact happened digitally through social media, phone calls, or text messages, where they would agree on the product, amount, time, and place. They would then meet physically to exchange drugs for money. Some of these transactions happened outside in the urban environment, others by car delivery, and some in apartments and houses. Most of the market participants saw social media use as nothing out of the ordinary as this was a common way to communicate with other people (Brubaker, 2020). That social media is now a part of people's everyday lives, also meant that drug market actors could begin building trust digitally before they met in person, showing how digital technologies have changed drug market interaction. Olav explained, “Social media is where the sellers and buyers are. It's about the people, you know.” Social media and phones provide a larger accessibility and logistical smoothness to customers and sellers (Bakken and Demant, 2019). Using open social media platforms lowered feelings of risk, as Lucas explained, “Everyone uses social media and it's not anything specific only [drug] sellers use, which makes it harder for the police.”
In the third market type, the physical market, participants bought and sold drugs strictly through face-to-face encounters without any technological support. For instance, close relationships, such as family members, could facilitate drug transactions. Jonathan said, “I bought it from my brother, who bought for us both. He was attending university at that moment and was home during weekends, and we shared.” Parties were another common place for these transactions, as Pernille who bought and used drug but did not sell explained, “I would say that the most common way [to acquire drugs] is that I just meet someone at a party who does it.” Furthermore, participants sold drugs in the urban environment or “apartments” as Steffen explained.
Moreover, buyers took advantage of open urban markets, as Greg, a buyer, explained, “I usually just hang out downtown, and after a while, dealers come by.” Others acquired drugs at school; Nora said, “There are a lot of people at school and one in my class who deals.”
The three markets were important in both projects. Therefore, we could divide the relationships within the datasets neatly into these categories. However, hardly any participant interacted solely within one of the categories, instead engaging with several markets at the same time and/or across time. A distinct market division may obscure the fact that people engage with different markets across time and limit our understanding of why participants choose one market as opposed to another. As such, while market characterizations are helpful, they do not reveal the full picture of how and why people purchase and sell drugs. Hence, based on our data, we argue that the buying and selling of drugs in contemporary society is better conceptualized as occurring on a continuum. Moreover, social relational and contextual factors shape one's actions on this continuum.
An economic sociological approach: social factors in drug markets
The digital–physical continuum represents three market types: fully digital, hybrid, and fully physical markets. However, the social factors impacting the sale and purchase of drugs complicate the market reality. None of the interviewees interacted with only one market type. The locations (where) of drug exchanges depend on a series of coincidental and carefully selected social and contextual factors, also impacting the how and why. In the following analysis, we take an economic sociological approach to discuss the overall factors of social networks, trust, and culture in creating movement across the drug market continuum.
While Figure 1 visually presents the continuum, Figure 2 illustrates how these social factors shaped choice and movement along the digital-physical continuum.
The digital–physical continuum of illegal drug markets (The social context of market actors).
Social networks
Sociological theory holds that exogenous social networks are a prerequisite for economic transactions (Granovetter, 1985). Although social networks are important in legal markets, they are indispensable in illegal markets because of the “absence of official marketplaces” (Moeller and Sandberg, 2019: 299). We found this to be the case in our data. A recurring theme in the interviews was that pre-existing social networks enabled drug purchase and sale. However, easy access to online drug markets and social media contacts changes the role of social networks as understood in previous literature. Pre-existing social relationships are still important but no longer fully define people's networks.
Traditional social supply of illegal drugs was common on the physical end of the continuum. Aksel, a frequent user, explained the importance of his pre-existing social network in acquiring drugs. “It [getting a hold of cannabis] was through another buddy of mine … who I got to know and who had some other friends who dealt drugs.” Aksel had a close friend with ample access to cannabis and could draw on this relationship to acquire it for himself. Similarly, Leo, a mid-level dealer, explained, “In my environment, there are a lot of people who smoke, so it [finding people to deal with] is not that difficult.” Distributing drugs through social supply, often for little or no profit, is a common way for drugs to be distributed for recreational use (Coomber et al., 2018). The friends you have and the parties you attend can be important factors in defining your social network and access to drugs.
However, while pre-existing social relationships are important for drug buying, we found that digital tools enable social network expansion beyond past experiences, existing networks, and preferences. Similar to cybercriminal networks (Leukfeldt et al., 2017), online platforms, social media apps, and cell phones enable the easy establishment of new dealer connections. For some, the lack of a pre-existing network necessitated drug purchase and sale online or through social media applications. As Ole said, “I use [darknet] when buying something I don’t have a dealer for.” At other times, online transactions happen when the pre-existing network suddenly stops. Lars for instance explained he had to go on “Snap” to buy drugs when a dealer friend of his got “busted by the police.”
Social media provides the possibility to contact several acquaintances in a short amount of time who are not necessarily known as sellers. Mike explained, “Typically, I send a Snap to everyone I know who sells, and then if nobody has anything, I send another Snap to everyone I know who smokes. About 99% of the time I am high 2 hours later.”
Online platforms enable new relationships across, and distant from, pre-existing networks, which further underscores the importance of understanding drug markets as a flexible and complex continuum. Social networks and their importance is not simply a matter of having or not having access to buyers and sellers. The “quality” of the relationship could determine where participants exist on the digital–physical continuum at any given moment. Jesper, for instance, explained, “My closest friends call me, but those that aren’t that close just send me a Snap. They don’t have my number.” Kevin uses encrypted communications apps with strangers, whereas “Snap is mostly for sales with friends.” The findings are in line with recent studies showing that the relationship between the buyer and seller can influence choice in digital platforms (Van der Sanden et al., 2022). Dealers like Emil operated with a referral system, where they would not sell to anyone on social media without being contacted or referred to by “friends.” This highlights the enduring importance of trust in illegal drug market distribution, especially in closed social network markets (Bakken et al., 2018; Belackova and Vaccaro, 2013).
Participants bought and sold drugs along a digital–physical continuum. Actions along the continuum was shaped by social networks—a central component for understanding economic action according to economic sociology (Granovetter, 2002). Pre-existing relationships, such as friends, can be crucial in deciding where, how, and with whom the deal takes place. While spending time together before, during, or after a drug transaction may seem like a cost in traditional economic theory, economic sociology argues ongoing social relations are an investment, and necessary for markets and economic decision-making because they build trust and reduce uncertainty (Granovetter, 1985). People's pre-existing social networks, or the lack thereof, are crucial in deciding where a deal takes place on the continuum. However, easy access to an expanded network through social media and other online platforms is always within reach. A further factor affecting the widening or closing of networks is the constant evaluation of risk and trust in any social relationship, especially when dealing illegal substances.
Risk and trust
As a social arena, markets are built on interaction and the establishment of relations (Beckert, 2003) with trust as a foundational factor (Schilke et al., 2021). Establishing a certain level of trust to balance potential risks is particularly crucial in illegal markets where high risk and uncertainty reign (Moeller, 2023). Digital technologies provide different options and advantages, such as the darknet enabling direct contact with multiple buyers and sellers (Bakken et al., 2018) or online reputation systems allowing dealers to build trust and buyers to make more informed transactions (Moeller, 2023). Our findings support previous research findings that risk and trust shape markets. However, the interviews underscore the enduring importance of tracking how social relationship factors, when broadly construed, interact with different markets and actors’ decisions across the continuum—from only physical to solely digital interactions—to understand the different market forms.
Crime-associated risks heavily impacted participants’ movements in physical locations and on online platforms. For several participants, the perceived risks of participating in an illegal market led to a preference for buying via trusted interpersonal ties, such as through close friendship networks and known communities. As Espen explained, “It's a criminal environment, so you can get robbed. I used to be paranoid about that. So, I have kept it [dealing] only to the people I spend time with.” Other interviewees avoided certain physical locations because of conspicuous police presence and lack of close relationships. Instead, they were drawn to areas where wealthy buyers dominated or where they had pre-existing social networks. Moreover, risks made buyers filter out preferred sellers across the physical–digital continuum. As Ove said, he would buy from “strangers” on Snapchat and other social media outlets but preferred to buy from people he knew well. Others, such as Peter, hung out in forums like Reddit to check out darknet sellers before buying from them, looking for rumors on what “they’ve been up to.”
Another central factor based on the participants’ need to balance risk and trust is individual strategies that influence their choices within the continuum. On social media, an act to reduce risk is keeping social media usernames a secret. “The biggest risk is probably if someone contacts you and lies about their identity. That might happen if IDs float around. I am therefore pretty strict on references and try not to expand,” said Andre. Nathan created a fictional story about what was happening on his side of the screen by pretending to be part of a group: I sell. I normally use Wickr, but I can also use Snapchat. (…) I kind of pretend that I play a role at a lower level, ha-ha, while in fact I’m “the man,” so to speak (…) What happens is someone contacts me for drugs. I tell them, for example on Snap, to contact “somebody else,” which is me on Wickr.
Studies on physical markets show how higher-level drug market actors use cutouts: people who act on their behalf but doesn’t know their identity, to protect them from law enforcement. Nathan's example is similar and shows how digital technologies enable a kind of digital cutout. In Nathan's case, creating a fictional story likely reduced his risk of detection by law enforcement. To further avoid risk and build trust, dealers like Nathan typically sold to people they knew or had been vouched for, lowering the chances of selling to an undercover officer. Others take advantage of technology across physical and hybrid dealing by using a mixture of old and new devices to reduce risk. Jon, a mid-level dealer, reasoned: I used to have this old Nokia because if the police show up, you can just toss it and they can’t trace it back to you, but Snap [Snapchat] is also good because no one can thoroughly investigate it.
Furthermore, individual strategies based on personal preference interact with participants’ interpersonal relationships (Granovetter, 1985). This was evident when analyzing how participant choices were influenced by their personal preferences and the preferences of buyers or sellers. For instance, the seller often decided the platform of communication. As Chris explained, “Dealers usually prefer one over another [Snapchat or Wickr], so I contact them on the social media platform they prefer.”
Participants who sold drugs confirmed that “nowadays, it's Snapchat.” Lars, a mid-level dealer in his early twenties, explained that he used Snapchat because it makes everything (e.g., communication) “easier.” However, his preferences went beyond the affordances offered by specific platforms: You kind of filter out the customers that are worth keeping … those who come to pick up a hundred grams, half a kilo [of cannabis], and things like that. Or, those who come and pick up a relatively large amount, say like fifteen grams of hash but without asking for a discount.
What defined a worthwhile customer varied depending on the participants, as did what were considered a large volume of drugs for any one buyer to purchase. But as a general statement, small amounts would be considered grams, whereas larger amounts would be from 10 to 100 grams and upward.
According to economic sociology, navigating risk and uncertainty is crucial for economic decision-making (Beckert, 2007). This is particularly the case in illegal markets (Moeller, 2023). Similarly, our findings show that risk and trust perceptions directly influence where drug dealing takes place on the continuum. These individual choices are shaped by interactions that further affect other market participants and their activities (Beckert, 2003). Every network and relationship is built on social interactions and maneuvered to reduce risk and build trust.
Culture and social codes
Understanding market participants as social actors underscores the need to draw on the larger context of where the actors’ behavior is taking place (Beckert, 2009). A significant part of the larger context is culture, which can be a general (Aspers, 2009) or a particular market culture (Sandberg, 2012). Previous studies have, for example, found that idealism and non-commercial values are central in private cannabis markets, whereas violent and criminal cultural values dominate street markets (Sandberg, 2012). We found that both general cultural characteristics and more particular subcultural values are important to understanding market actors’ behavior along the continuum. The existing values guide the overall market trends and movements across the continuum and shape the actions within each market type. The importance of street culture in illegal drug markets (Anderson, 2000; Sandberg and Pedersen, 2011) was evident in our study, especially in the form of violence, as expressed by Kjetil, a high school student who sold on the low level: I had some problems with people being aggressive and testing me … but it's kind of like signing a contract when you start dealing. Then you know that people may test you and all that. So, then it really just comes down to showing who is the boss. Show that “You can’t come here and fuck with me.”
As Kjetil mentioned, actors in illegal markets cannot realistically go to the police when disputes arise; hence, they are dependent on themselves or their social networks for responding to conflicts. Kjetil had been involved in street culture, which influenced the markets he engaged with and his self-presentation as violent. He contracted peers with high levels of street capital to retaliate when he was robbed. Some participants made initial earnings by robbing other dealers, whereas others deterred robbers by pointing to their past violent actions. Therefore, the findings demonstrate the importance of presenting and defending a violent reputation when dealing drugs (Anderson, 2000) across the digital–physical continuum.
However, participants varied in their use of violence and other street culture responses depending on the situation (Lindegaard and Zimmermann, 2017). When participating in a private cannabis market, Julian who dealt on the low level was more influenced by idealism when acquiring cannabis, often speaking about wanting to help people who were sick and in need of medical cannabis. Some sellers even acknowledged each other's sales without violent conflicts, such as Mike, who had a friend selling in the same market as him, “No, we don’t cooperate. But it's not like we’re competing either. We’re just in the same market. It's better if we stay friends.”
While some participants who sold cannabis on the low-level eventually scaled up their dealings, many retained their idealistic and non-commercial values. This illustrates, among other things, that the type of culture participants bring into the economy is important (Sandberg, 2012).
However, not all rules were specifically tied to cultures in the larger sense but to more local social codes. As David, a buyer, expressed, “All sellers have their own rules.” An example of a social code was being on time, which Nathan expressed clearly, “If they [buyers] are running one minute late, I cut off the deal and go home … One has his own set of rules. These work fine for me.”
Most of the dealers had more than enough customers to sell to, as such they had the luxury of being selective and of cutting people off. Breaking social codes could be hurtful for sellers as the buyers will quickly spread their negative experiences through social networks, either digitally or physically, as Lars explained: Reputation is important. If a seller treats a customer badly, rumors may spread fast and he’ll end up losing customers. (…) I tell a friend. They tell it to their friends, sometimes via social media. It's sort of a norm to spread info[rmation] about dealers ripping people off.
It is therefore crucial to know what to expect from both a seller's and a buyer's perspective.
Such informal understandings among the participants are important in structuring a social arena, such as a market (Fligstein and Dauter, 2007). Taking an economic sociological approach to the study of illegal drug markets in the digital age shows that market interaction is shaped by general (Aspers, 2009) and specific market cultures (Sandberg, 2012) and codes (Fligstein and Dauter, 2007). In a digital–physical continuum of illegal drug markets, street and drug subcultures exist alongside and within the emerging digital culture, making it clear that subcultural values are as important as digital aspects in today's illegal drug markets.
Concluding discussion
In the early 2000's scholars outside the drug market literature remarked that there would soon be no traveling between cyberspace and “real” space, because there would be no meaningful boundary between the two (Thomas, 2006). Yet, much of the literature on illegal drug markets is stuck in an online/offline divide, despite sociological research and social theory continuing to show the inextricable links between digital and physical relationships (e.g., Fussey and Roth, 2020). In this study, we explored this tension by merging two studies of illegal drug markets in Norway, where one focused on the physical market and the other on the digital market. Across both datasets, we found three markets along a continuum, namely digital, hybrid, and physical markets. Digital markets operated completely online without any face-to-face interaction. Hybrid markets included social media and online interactions, with the exchanges taking place at physical locations. Finally, physical markets operated completely at physical locations, such as schools, parties, and bars. While participants transacted in digital-only and physical-only markets, much of today’s drug trading takes place along a continuum where there is a mix of more or less digital and physical components. Where on the continuum participants operate depend on various social and relational factors.
The extremes of digital and physical on the continuum point to the enduring importance of online/offline concepts. Digital technology has clearly impacted illegal drug markets by altering them as a social phenomenon (e.g., when drug transactions are fully digital), a finding that supports sociological research and theoretically argues for the immense societal transformations caused by the advent of digital technologies (e.g., Brubaker, 2020). Conversely, our study shows the importance of physical locations, contexts, and interactions in today's illegal drug markets, demonstrating the extent to which social phenomena are resistant or reluctant to change (e.g., when drug transactions are solely physical). The center of the continuum is a space for various hybrid forms of transactions taking place both online and offline within the same exchange. The embeddedness of digital technologies in social life encourages easy and accessible communication on social media and other online platforms, which largely impact local drug markets by facilitating new relationships and a growing network. These markets are understudied but important to understand mid-range or hybrid markets, where supply is partially digitally mediated (Korshøj and Søgaard, 2024; Tzanetakis and South, 2023).
The continuum represents ideal market types that are equally important for participants in today's illegal drug markets, whether they are sellers or buyers. Separating market forms into clear categories, such as online/offline, open/closed, and hybrid/mid-range, help understand specific aspects of drug markets, such as how digital platforms are facilitating new forms of drug marketing (e.g., cryptomarkets) and how traditional street dealing and exchanges in parties are still important. However, the ideal market types rarely present the reality and complexity of daily market activities. A recent study of hybrid drug dealing on social media showed how drug dealing takes place online and offline and warns that these terms may be “essentializing,” calling for more critical use of language when conceptualizing and describing markets (Korshøj and Søgaard, 2024). Our study responds to such criticism by introducing the digital–physical continuum, showing the importance of embracing the larger picture to understand the reality of illegal drug markets.
The market categories on the continuum represent three different social spaces enabling different possibilities and limitations of the how, where, when, and with whom of drug dealing. However, economic sociology underscores the importance of including interpersonal social relationships to fully understand economic behavior (Granovetter, 1985). Recent studies have made similar claims about the importance of including social and contextual factors when studying drug markets in the digital age (e.g., Korshøj and Søgaard, 2024; Van der Sanden et al., 2022), but none have utilized insights from economic sociology when doing so. By drawing explicitly on economic sociology, our study shows that sellers’ and buyers’ market behavior depend on a complex web of entangled social factors impacting every individual market exchange, implying that most participants have market relationships all over the continuum. Social factors like one's social network, or lack thereof, have a major impact on where the interaction and economic exchange takes place. While pre-existing physical networks lay the foundation for several participants’ drug-related networks, they no longer fully define the individual reach when buying or selling owing to the availability of digital communication tools and online platforms. Online contacts are always available, even though the quality of the relationship is not as high as that of close physical relationships. Another important factor for where on the continuum a deal takes place is the individual and intra-personal calculation of risk and trust. Digital and hybrid markets have led to a larger available selection of market participants across all market types, which, according to our study, enables the setting of buyers’ and sellers’ individual preferences that affect their drug network and the market form. The easy movement across various market forms on the continuum forces participants to alter their behavior and evaluate risk and trust within various market formations or social situations. A third factor is the larger market context, that is, the cultural aspects related to drug markets, involving both specific cultures and larger subcultural or mainstream cultural values. Mainstream cultural changes, such as the digitalization of communication, create new forms of drug markets and influence people's movements across the continuum by facilitating social interaction across different platforms. However, street values, such as violence, are still important, and participants juggle their street skills depending on the type of relationship and market. All market forms are shaped by local cultures and expectations set by drug cultures or on a one-to-one relational level. The discussion of these three social factors—networks, trust and risk, and culture—shows that the participants’ market choice along the continuum is not coincidental. All three social factors influence where and how drug transactions take place along the continuum. However, it is important to note the social reality of drug market participation; these factors do not exclude one another as the movements across market types are frequent and the participants are largely flexible regarding the context of the drug deal.
Embracing both the economic and social aspects of drug markets is important in understanding illegal drug market activities (Beckert and Wehinger, 2013; Granovetter, 1985). The utility of economic sociology has been proven in studies on illegal markets and illegal drug markets (Moeller and Sandberg, 2017; 2019; Moeller, 2018; Sandberg, 2012). Our study demonstrates how the basic understanding of economic sociology, such as the importance of social and interpersonal relationships for economic action, allows us to move beyond the online/offline divide in sociological research. Putting the dichotomy aside allowed for the inclusion of hybrid forms of digital and physical drug dealing as complementary ways of buying and selling in the fully digital and physical markets. Most importantly, focusing on the social and interactional impacts of drug exchanges within the set frame of the continuum enabled us to embrace the complexity of an economic market as a social reality. Despite the usefulness of comprehensively understanding separate market types, the categorizations and focuses may be somewhat misleading, effectively blurring the social reality and everyday life of drug markets. Market participants do not reflect single market types. They are social beings who alter their behavior and choices based on other actors, their experiences and preferences, and the codes and structures established by their cultural contexts. However, the sum of all the social factors seems to determine the typology of drug markets on a continuum of digital, hybrid, and physical spaces where drug dealing takes place.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
ORCID iDs
