We draw from aspects of Black’s theory of conflict management to (1) provide a description of the types of disputes occurring at the highest levels of the drug trade and (2) examine whether conflicts that end in violence differed from those that found a peaceful resolution. A mixed-methods approach was used to analyse 33 incidents…
The size of criminal populations is unknown, and policy decisions are typically based only on the number of offenses and offenders that come to the attention of the criminal justice system. However, the size of criminal populations may follow different trends than what is observed in official data. We use a regression-adjusted capture–recapture model to…
Is the online domain really so terribly important for drug policy researchers to engage with in order to study drugs and drug policy? Is illicit drug use not, after all, an ‘offline’ activity enacted by people with their offline identities as they buy, sell and consume – not digital – but physical psychoactive substances? With…
Surveys on drugs and alcohol availability show that (1) alcohol is much more easily accessible than both cannabis and tobacco, and that (2) many adolescents still do not find it ‘easy’ to access those substances. In the current study, we examine the importance of both opportunity and availability in assessing substance use in adolescence. Our…
Background: Global cases of overdose-related deaths attributed to synthetic opioids are reaching epidemic proportion in many jurisdictions. While the main focus of health agencies and the different levels of government has been to combat the cases linked to injection drug use, the deaths attributed to smoking illegal drugs have not gained the same attention. Moreover, little…
The study examines the social context of a cannabis offer, an outcome rarely examined in research on substance use. Drawing from a survey conducted among 15-year-old students in a mid-sized Canadian city, we examine (a) the differences between three types of users (immediate, late, and nonusers) and (b) the factors associated with accepting a cannabis…
The report provides estimates of: 1) cannabis prices from 2011 to 2015; and 2) the price elasticity of cannabis demand in Canada. Estimates rely on approximately 9,000 self-reported cannabis transactions from 2011 to 2015, as reported to the Price of Weed website, an online platform for cannabis users to anonymously submit the price, size, perceived…
This study examines the relationship between network structure and risk perceptions. We use self-report data on 359 illicit marijuana growers and their personal co-worker networks. Our results show that growers with more structural holes in their co-worker network perceive higher risk of apprehension from law enforcement. We argue that this result is facilitated by two…
The past decade saw increasing attention turned toward Canada as an active supplier of synthetic drugs to the U.S. and wider international market. Other than occasional drug seizures at border crossings and news stories, no systematic research has been conducted to verify or ascertain such claims. This study assesses the Canadian synthetic drugs market by…
Objectives: This study looks at whether social opportunity structures are associated with transitions into more serious drug market offending. Our focus is on the speed at which transitions occurred, and whether variations in criminal embeddedness play a role in explaining this. Methods: A survey of 520 North American cannabis cultivators allowed us to assess one dimension of…