Nordic drug dealing on social media (NDDSM)
PROJECT IS COMPLETED
Project period: June 1, 2017 to December 1, 2018
With the rise of the cryptomarkets for illicit drugs, a growing academic interest in dark web drug distribution has followed. However, online drug distribution is not isolated to the dark web as services on the clear web historically have offered a variety of substances and continue to do so. Additionally to the researched open markets on e.g. research chemicals, legal highs, and prescription medicine, we have identified a rise in the use of social media platforms for distribution of illicit drugs.
Little is known on how widespread such selling is, to what extent different social media platforms are involved, or which modi operandi are used.
The aims of this study was to generate knowledge on the development of social media drug markets within the drug markets in the Nordic countries. Five Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland) were participating in this project in order to get a comparative perspective. The aim of the main project was addressing questions regarding which similarities and differences exist within and between countries. In addition, whether it was possible to identify differences related to criminal justice and culture within each country.
The scope and number of groups, group sizes, and vendors within the public social media is unknown. This project addressed such descriptive questions in order to estimate how this form of drug dealing impacted the Nordic markets from manufacturer to end-users. Further, we wanted to gain access to a number of groups on Facebook. Within these groups, we collected data by ethnographic fieldwork, as well as using web crawling and –scraping. Another important part of the project was the fully anonymous interviews with sellers and buyers. These was be fully encrypted qualitative interviews, mostly made through encrypted chat application such as Wickr.
The project was ethically approved by the University of Copenhagen.
Associate Professor Jakob Demant at University of Copenhagen led the project with the help of research assistant Silje Bakken. Multiple student assistants helped with data collection in each of the Nordic countries.
Demant, J., Bakken, S. and Hall, A. (2020), "Social media markets for prescription drugs: platforms as virtual mortars for drug types and dealers", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 20 No. 1, pp. 36-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/DAT-06-2019-0026
Demant, J., Bakken, S.A, Oksanen, A. & Gunlaugsson, H. (2019) Drug dealing on Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram: A qualitative analysis of novel drug markets in the Nordic countries. Drugs and Alcohol Review. 38(4), 377-385
Bakken, S.A. & Demant, J. (2019). Sellers' risk perceptions in public and private social media drug markets. International Journal of Drug Review. Early online.
Bakken, Silje Anderdal; Demant, Jakob Johan (2019) Narkotikamarkeder på nett: en begrepsutvikling av digital kapital. Norsk Sosiologisk Tidsskrift, 2019.
Demant, J. & Bakken, S. (2019) Technology-facilitated drug dealing via social media in the Nordic countries. EMCDDA commissioned paper, EMCDDA, Lisbon
Jakob Demant (PI)
Department of Sociology
Mail: jd@soc.ku.dk
Phone: 35 32 15 84
The project was funded by:
Nordic drug dealing on social media (NDDSM) was funded by Nordic Research Council for Criminology.
Project: Nordic drug dealing on social media (NDDSM)
Principal investigator: Jakob Demant
Start: June 1, 2017
End: December 1, 2018