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This pathway paper offers research guidance for investigating illegal supply chains as they increasingly threaten societies, economies and ecosystems. There are implications for policy makers to consider incorporating supply chain expertise.

The authors’ work is informed by the team's previous and ongoing studies, research from fields such as criminology, investigative journalism and legal documents.

Illegality occurs in many supply chains and consists in multiple forms. Certain sectors, supply chain innovations, longer supply chains, and heterogeneous regulations and enforcement exacerbate illegal activities. But illegal activity may be necessary for humanitarian, religious or nationalistic reasons. These areas are under explored by supply chain researchers.

By encouraging supply chain academics to research in this area as well as form collaborative partnerships outside of the discipline, the authors hope to move the field forward in prevention as well as learning from illegal supply chains.

Practitioners seek to prevent issues like counterfeiting with their products as well as fraud for economic and reputational reasons.

Governments strive to minimise impacts on their economies and people, and both governments and NGOs attempt to minimise the negative social and environmental impacts. Policy makers need supply chain researchers to evaluate new laws to prevent enabling illegality in supply chains.

As an under-explored area, the authors suggest pathways such as partnering with other disciplines, exploring why these supply chains occur, considering other data sources and methodologies to interdict illegality and learning from illegal supply chains to improve legal supply chains.

This paper aims to explore the misuse of prescription opioids, associated consumption cultures and the emergence of “informal governing images” among young men in Nigeria.

Using a qualitative research approach involving purposive sampling: six in-depth interviews, one focus group discussion and key informant interviews with two health-care professionals using the transgressive theory approach, this paper explores consumption cultures, motivations and the resultant “informal governing images” associated with the misuse of prescription opioids among young local street high-risk users in Nigeria.

Findings show complex expressions of diverse consumption practices, such as grinding, sniffing and concoction of tramadol (TM)with other opioids. The “puff-puff pass” practice serves as induction for new users of opioids commonly accessed through street drug dealers and pharmacists sold via backdoors. Codeine mixtures with different brands of soft drinks for dilution are used to achieve a “lower high” while a concoction of different opioids, with alcohol, and spirits obtains a “higher high”. Manufacturers’ indelible colouring and bottling discourage the non-medical use of opioids. Desiring to be awake for nocturnal activities, mostly “yahoo-yahoo” (internet fraud), sexual enhancement and dosage competitions, are motivations for the non-medical use of prescription opioids. These consumption cultures create “misuse circuits”, leading to the emergence of “informal governing images” triggered by threats from formal controls.

This paper, therefore, concludes that pharmaceutical industries should also add colourings to TM and codeine just like they did in rophinol to discourage the non-medical use of prescription opioids among young people in Nigeria.

This paper concludes that rather than branding and packaging in such a way that concealability is difficult for high-risk users as the best way to discourage the non-medical consumption of prescription opioids in Nigeria, the focus should be on addressing youth poverty and unemployment and improving access to treatment for drug use disorders, instead of calling for more enforcement-based measures.

This is an original research.

Prisoners with substance use disorder (SUD) are at risk of mental health problems. Given the common co-occurring of psychopathic traits with SUDs, probably because of underlying impulsive traits (Ellingson et al., 2018), this study aims to examine the relation between psychopathy (impulsive antisociality and fearless dominance) and the functioning of incarcerated individuals with SUD. The authors investigated whether impulsivity (motor, nonplanning and attentional) can account for the relationship between one psychopathy facet (impulsive antisociality) and craving and mental health problems.

The authors assessed self-reported impulsivity, psychopathy, craving and mental health problems in 121 male incarcerated individuals with SUD and calculated cross-sectional linear regression analyses and mediation models.

Impulsive antisociality was positively related to all impulsivity facets, craving and mental health problems. Attentional impulsivity mediated the relationship of impulsive antisociality with craving and mental health problems. Fearless dominance was related to lower attentional and nonplanning impulsivity, craving and mental health problems.

Future studies should investigate these relations in longitudinal studies and evaluate tailored approaches, for example, mindfulness interventions.

Interventions to reduce craving and improve mental health might be important for those who display self-centered, antisocial behavior but are less relevant for those with fearless, dominant interpersonal behavior. Addressing attentional impulsivity may be of special interest in this regard.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study was the first to investigate the mediating role of different impulsivity facets for the association of impulsive antisociality with craving and with mental health problems in incarcerated individuals with SUD.

Social media networks make their services freely available to all users. Users pay for the service received with the time and attention taken by the advertisements. This chapter argues that social media platforms are a unique form of monopoly driven by “the more the merrier” effect (i.e., network effects) in users' consumption. These monopolies exercise market power, not by charging higher prices to users but by “tying” larger amounts of advertising to their content. Traditional antitrust instruments designed to address excessive pricing and reduced output by monopolies need to be reframed to tame the attention economy problems in the social media industry. This chapter discusses five antitrust instruments grouped in three categories: structural, behavioral, and market-based remedies. Market-based solutions are the least explored in the literature, despite being the most promising instruments to lower the attention costs imposed on users, while preserving the economies of scope in production and the network effects in consumption, and possibly maintaining free access to social media, as we know it today.

The purpose of this study is to understand the complex interplay between illicit opioids trade and consumption practices and state policies that aim to reduce their misuse.

The study adopted an exploratory design. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews with 31 commercially oriented drug dealers in Uyo, Nigeria. The framework approach was used in data analyses, while “friction” provided the interpretive lens.

Accounts revealed public concerns over the misuse of tramadol and other opioids among young people and the associated health and social harms. These concerns provided support for enforcement-based approaches to prescription opioids control, including police raids on pharmacy stores. These measures did not curtail opioids supply and consumption. Instead, they constrained access to essential medicines for pain management, encouraged illegal markets and fuelled law enforcement corruption in the form of police complicity in illegal tramadol trade.

The findings reveal the frictions of drug control in Nigeria, wherein enforcement-based approaches gained traction through public concerns about opioids misuse but also faced resistance due to the persistence of non-medical use and illegal supply channels made possible by law enforcement complicity. These indicate a need to prioritize approaches that seek to reduce illegal supply and misuse of opioids while ensuring availability of these medications for health-care needs.

The study is unique in its focus on the creative tension that exists between state control measures and local opioids supply and consumption practices.

The purpose of this study is to examine the politics, political economy, and fallout of hawkish regulatory policy on prescription drugs in Nigeria. Hawkish regulatory policy on prescription drug in Nigeria, such as opioid analgesics, is a very complex and multifaceted one, which usually involves the interplay of many factors and parties.

Policy manuals, official government gazettes (legislations, regulations, Acts and decrees), academic literature and a direct ethnographic observation of events surrounding the regulation of prescription drugs were reviewed and engaged.

The results revealed that Nigerian and global political economy and politics interface to define the direction of the new restrictive opioid policy, with resultant friction between prohibition and consumption. The reviews showed that the overarching “get-tough” and “repressive” policy are not necessarily founded on empirical evidence of an increase in prescription drug sales or use, but more as a product of the interplay of both internal and external politics and the prevailing socioeconomic order.

Instead of borrowing extensively from or being influenced by repressive Western drug laws and perspectives, Nigerian policymakers on prescription opioids should take control of the process by drawing up a home-grown policy that is less intrusive and punitive in nature for better outcomes. A mental sea change is required to understand the intrigues of Western power in Nigeria’s politics and political economy to avoid the continuous symptomatic failure of drug policy.

The politics and economic influence of the United Nations, USA and Western powers, as well as the axiom of moral panic of prescription drugs scares within the Nigerian environment, are particularly significant in the making of the emerging hawkish policy on prescription drugs in Nigeria.

The purpose of this research paper is to review and synthesize the role of blockchain technology (BCT) in various types of illegal activities, including but not limited to fraud, money laundering, ransomware attacks, firearms, drug tracking, cyberattacks, identity theft and scams.

The authors conducted a review of studies related to illegal activities using blockchain from 2015 to 2023. Next, a thematic review of the literature was performed to see how these illegal activities were conducted using BCT.

Through this study, the authors identify the relevant themes that highlight the major illegal activities performed using BCT, its possible steps for prevention and the opportunities for future developments. Finally, the authors provide suggestions for future research using the theory, context and method framework.

No other research has synthesized the illegal activities using BCT through a thematic approach to the best of the authors’ knowledge. Hence, this study will act as a starting point for future research for academic and technical practitioners in this area.

This study aims to examine the role of Australian casinos in facilitating money laundering and Chinese capital flight.

The reports and transcripts of evidence from government inquiries into money laundering in Australian casinos are integrated with analyses of Asian transnational crime.

Money laundering in Australian casinos is linked to transnational crime and Chinese capital flight. A central finding is that junket operators play a key role in facilitating money laundering. The casinos are particularly exposed to criminal influences in the Chinese very important person gambling market, since they have used junket operators and underground banks, many of whom are closely linked to major Chinese criminal groups from Hong Kong and Macau.

Very little information is available on money laundering in Australian casinos and this research has relied on the government inquiries that have been conducted over the past two years on the subject.

The author’s focus on money laundering in Australian casinos in the context of Asia-Pacific transnational crime is important for Federal and state government regulators grappling with the rapidly changing money laundering issues. The government inquiries recognised that the money laundering was related to transnational crime, but did not have the time and resources to explore the topic. The paper provides state government casino regulators and financial crime regulators with a broader international perspective to anticipate future money laundering and crime pressures facing Australia’s casinos.

Money laundering in Australian casinos has had devastating social implications on the community. My research helps to focus attention on the problems of transnational crime and money laundering.

Little research has examined the linkages between casinos and transnational crime. This study has found that Australian casinos were used to launder the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking and to facilitate Chinese capital flight. While casinos have been forced by damming government inquiries to tighten anti-money laundering controls, it is likely that there will be pressure to relax these controls in the future because of competitive pressure from other casinos in the Asia-Pacific region.

Illicit drug use is a well-known global problem that has been noticed to be increased significantly among medical students. This study aims to assess the prevalence and consequences of illicit drug use among medical students in the country of Jordan using the validated Drug Abuse Screening Test-10 (DAST-10).

The authors used a cross-sectional, descriptive design to conduct this study. A total of 2,104 participants from six medical schools were included. A structured online-based English self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection.

Out of 2,104 included participants, 242 (11.5%) reported using illicit drugs in the past year. More than three-quarters (77%) of the drug users suffer from various degrees of problems related to drug use, ranging from risky (41%) to severe risk (6%). Drug use was found to be associated with gender, planned specialty and exposure to psychiatry training.

The cross-sectional design prevents from drawing cause-and-effect relationships and confirming how the tendency toward substance use is affected by the psychological state, sleep quality and exposure to psychiatry. Also, although it is important to measure the subjective observation of distress and sleep, objective estimates of psychological distress and sleep including actigraphy and sleep diary could be helpful to strengthen the findings. Also using an online survey with convenience sampling are some inevitable limitations with the present COVID-19 restrictions. Also, the nature of DAST-10 closed-ended questions precluded from accurately exploring the consequences of substance abuse.

Appropriate screening to identify medical students at risk for substance abuse and provide them with treatment referrals are strongly recommended in this study. In addition, medical schools should provide a comfortable environment that encourages a healthy lifestyle with a responsible attitude toward using drugs.

There is a dearth of information about illicit drug use among medical students, especially in the country of Jordan. The nature of their studies, the different stresses they experience and the impact imposed by other factors such as sociocultural all are likely to make medical students more susceptible to drug abuse. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first cross-national study of its kind in Jordan with a representative sample of 2,104 participants. We assessed the prevalence and consequences of self-reported illicit drug use and the sleep quality of medical students from all schools of medicine in Jordan.