Drifting in and out of Dealing - results on career dynamics from the TDID project
This chapter examines the ways in which people got in and out of profit-oriented drug dealing. 114 respondents from the German TDID research project gave information about getting into the selling of illicit drugs, while smaller subsamples were analysed f
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Drifting in and out of Dealing - results on career dynamics from the TDID project Bernd Werse and Daniela Müller
Abstract This chapter examines the ways in which people got in and out of profit-oriented drug dealing. 114 respondents from the German TDID research project gave information about getting into the selling of illicit drugs, while smaller subsamples were analysed for the intensification, reduction and/or cessation of their dealing activity. All respondents were recreational drug users. Three modes of entry into drug dealing described in Murphy et al.’s paper “drifting into dealing” (1990) also emerged in our analysis (stash-dealer, go-between, connoisseur). In addition to these, four more significant types were examined (supply guarantee, adventurer, money-driven, dealer fame). A significant part of the respondents showed a combination of several motives for their entry into drug dealing. Reasons why respondents intensified their dealing activities were demandpull increase, money-driven, supply-induced, stress reduction, and dealer-fame. The modes of entry as well as the modes of intensification could be mostly described as a drift: a vast majority successively got into regular deviant behaviour, often rather unintentionally. The notion of drift is even more important for the ways of exiting drug dealing: A vast majority described it as a rather fluid process in the context of “maturing out” of regular illicit drug use, usually including several motives such as changes in life course, fear of discovery, social stress, changes in relations with friends and business partners, or self-perception. A minority referred to one crucial experience for stopping dealing activities, this was mostly related to law enforcement activities. A remarkable feature of the drifting process is that for many respondents, progressions from drug use to social supply, to making profit, to increasing sales volumes were not regarded as a further step into “real” deviance. Only a few subjects developed a “real” deviant identity, some of them cherishing the status in a deviant setting.
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2016 B. Werse und C. Bernard (Hrsg.), Friendly Business, DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-10329-3_6
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Bernd Werse and Daniela Müller Introduction
Murphy et al. introduced the concept of “drifting into dealing” into social drug research by their paper of the same name from 1990. Referring to Becker’s (1963) general career-oriented view on the self-concept of deviant and, in particular, drug-using persons, and Matza’s (1964) concept of drift in and out of deviant behaviour among young delinquents, they examined careers of cocaine sellers with regard to their modes of entry. Most of these subjects had other intentions than making profit when they started to sell the drug (see 3.1), but then drifted into the role of a drug dealer successively. This concept of ‘unintentional’ drug dealing is heavily opposed to traditional views of dealers as greedy ‘pushers’. A number of more recent papers have revisited this concept. E.g., in a
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