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The burgeoning recognition and accommodation of the social supply of drugs in international criminal justice systems: An eleven-nation comparative overview

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Abstract

Background

It is now commonly accepted that there exists a form of drug supply, that involves the non-commercial supply of drugs to friends and acquaintances for little or no profit, which is qualitatively different from profit motivated ‘drug dealing proper’. ‘Social supply’, as it has become known, has a strong conceptual footprint in the United Kingdom, shaped by empirical research, policy discussion and its accommodation in legal frameworks. Though scholarship has emerged in a number of contexts outside the UK, the extent to which social supply has developed as an internationally recognised concept in criminal justice contexts is still unclear.

Methods

Drawing on an established international social supply research network across eleven nations, this paper provides the first assessment of social supply as an internationally relevant concept. Data derives from individual and team research stemming from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, England and Wales, and the United States, supported by expert reflection on research evidence and analysis of sentencing and media reporting in each context. In situ social supply experts addressed a common set of questions regarding the nature of social supply for their particular context including: an overview of social supply research activity, reflection on the extent that differentiation is accommodated in drug supply sentencing frameworks; evaluating the extent to which social supply is recognised in legal discourse and in sentencing practices and more broadly by e.g. criminal justice professionals in the public sphere. A thematic analysis of these scripts was undertaken and emergent themes were developed. Whilst having an absence of local research, New Zealand is also included in the analysis as there exists a genuine discursive presence of social supply in the drug control and sentencing policy contexts in that country.

Results

Findings suggest that while social supply has been found to exist as a real and distinct behaviour, its acceptance and application in criminal justice systems ranges from explicit through to implicit. In the absence of dedicated guiding frameworks, strong use is made of discretion and mitigating circumstances in attempts to acknowledge supply differentiation. In some jurisdictions, there is no accommodation of social supply, and while aggravating factors can be applied to differentiate more serious offences, social suppliers remain subject to arbitrary deterrent sentencing apparatus.

Conclusion

Due to the shifting sands of politics, mood, or geographical disparity, reliance on judicial discretion and the use of mitigating circumstances to implement commensurate sentences for social suppliers is no longer sufficient. Further research is required to strengthen the conceptual presence of social supply in policy and practice as a behaviour that extends beyond cannabis and is relevant to users of all drugs. Research informed guidelines and/or specific sentencing provisions for social suppliers would provide fewer possibilities for inconsistency and promote more proportionate outcomes for this fast-growing group.

Section snippets

Background

In 2000, the Police Foundation published its inquiry into the United Kingdom’s Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, and in it raised the issue that too many of those prosecuted for supply offences did not resemble the type of supplier that the Act was initially designed to capture and prosecute (Coomber & Moyle, 2013). Specifically, the report distinguished between ‘dealers proper’, whose supply activity was essentially commercial in nature and characterised by a more serious culpability, with supply ‘for

Methods

The absence of research that seeks to provide an analysis of the place of social supply in international criminal justice systems might be in part related to the difficulties in accessing this data in unfamiliar contexts. Apart from obvious language barriers, social supply practices may not always be defined as such or may be only recognised informally, with little explicit discussion of its parameters or characteristics in official documents. For these reasons, data presented in this paper are

Discussion

From Europe, to North America, Hong Kong and Australia, empirical research suggests that there is a distinctive socially situated supply practice, separate from commercially motivated dealing that is commonly observed in drug using populations. While researchers have agreed on some of the key features of social supply (i.e. largely as not-for-profit distribution to non-strangers), in many ways, the parameters or scope of social supply in particular countries are shaped by the nature of the

Conclusion

Research on social supply has tended to focus on distinct milieus and communities, and there has to date been little consideration of social supply as an internationally relevant concept. Although this research can only provide a snapshot of the global picture, it offers some important contributions in regard to its applicability, acceptance and operationalisation in international criminal justice contexts. Data suggests that while researchers identified the presence of social drug supply in

Declarations of interest

None.

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