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Illicit drug use amongst women in Zimbabwe is increasing. The most common drugs of choice are marijuana and new psychoactive substances like ecstasy, cough syrups with a high content of codeine, and other small intoxicating pills like mangemba (diazepam). The most affected population group are women between the ages of 20 to 40.

In a community engagement undertaken by Zimbabwe Civil Liberties and Drug Network in five of Zimbabwe’s provinces, socio, cultural and economic factors were identified as the drivers of increased engagement with the drug trade. The urge to be independent and the inter-related aspect of sex work were also identified as push factors accounting for the increase in illicit drug usage in the country. The community engagement showed most women use illicit drugs as a way of liberating themselves within a heavily patriarchal society and due to the traumas associated with sex work. Sex work in turn exposes women to opportunistic infections, rape, violence and sexual violence. Women perform different roles in the illicit drug economy. In their role as sellers of controlled drugs, women aimed to support their families, maximising the opportunities presented by life in illicit economies. Whilst advocacy groups are pressing for drug policy reform in Zimbabwe, interventions can be designed to help women extricate themselves from this quagmire through empowering them and having a drug policy that among other facets, strengthens communities.

This chapter investigates how new technologies of encryption and cryptocurrencies enable entrepreneurial opportunities outside legality in the dark net. Since ventures on illicit dark net markets lack access to the legal system and to law enforcement agencies, they must rely on mechanisms for settling disputes with business partners without the involvement of mediating agencies. To this end, the presence of trust is decisive in coordinating cryptomarket activities. Hence, entrepreneurs on dark net markets utilize technology to gain trust, establishing new ways of drug dealing, with disruptive potential for classic illicit drug markets. Against this background, this chapter shows how technological change affects the identity of entrepreneurs on the dark net. Special emphasis is given to the entrepreneurs’ self-concept, their consumer service, knowledge and capabilities and how, in a holistic view, this development innovates the traditional way of dealing illicit drugs.

Cryptomarkets on the dark web have emerged as a hub for the sale of illicit drugs. They have made it easier for the customers to get access to illicit drugs online while ensuring their anonymity. The easy availability of potentially harmful drugs has resulted in a significant impact on public health. Consequently, law enforcement agencies put a lot of effort and resources into shutting down online markets on the dark web. A lot of research work has also been conducted to understand the working of customers and vendors involved in the cryptomarkets that may help the law enforcement agencies. In this research, we present a ranking methodology to identify and rank top markets dealing in harmful illicit drugs. Using named entity recognition, a harm score of a drug market is calculated to indicate the degree of threat followed by the ranking of drug markets. The top-ranked markets are the ones selling the most harmful drugs. The rankings thus obtained can be helpful to law enforcement agencies by locating specific markets selling harmful illicit drugs and their further monitoring.

Global drug policy has undergone significant change over the past decade, especially with the advent of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs. This was a catalyst moment both in highlighting the need for a gender perspective in drug policy, and in initiating a review of the indicators used to evaluate progress in drug policy.

To date, the UN has not adequately tracked gender-specific data in drug policy. This is symptomatic of the lack of focus granted to the specific vulnerabilities and needs of women in the illicit drug trade. This has resulted in a knowledge and understanding gap in relation to the issues faced by women worldwide.

The importance of quantitative and qualitative data and analysis of how and why women are involved in the illicit drug trade, and how this relates to their age, ethnicity, socio-economic status, family situation and history of trauma, violence and mental illness cannot be understated. Without adequate indicators on the underlying factors of their engagement in the trade, the differentiated impacts that both drugs and drug policies have on their lives, and the vulnerabilities they may face, policy makers will be unable to design and implement drug policies that are truly effective.

This chapter provides a historic overview of how data on women has so far been tracked by the UN. The chapter will then look to the future, focussing on opportunities to identify more meaningful indicators within a revised Annual Reports Questionnaire, and also by leveraging the Sustainable Development Goals, UN human rights mechanisms and civil society research.

This chapter explores the relationship between the global drug policy agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Development is one of the key pillars of the UN's charter; however, sustainable development and drug policy have existed in separate policy spaces for decades. During 2015 and 2016, two parallel processes took place at the UN – the adoption of the 2015 SDGs, superseding the Millennium Development Goals, and the 2016 UN Special Session on the world drug problem (UNGASS), a global convening of countries to create a way forward to address illicit drugs. This chapter explores how a group of reform-oriented countries, UN agencies and civil society stakeholders used the UNGASS to advocate for better policy alignment with development principles. While some headway was made, tensions remain about allowing a development approach into the drug policy realm. This chapter argues that given strong pushback to maintain a law enforcement-driven agenda by many countries, better alignment will not happen without more clarity on what sustainable development–driven drug policy is and without champions to push these ideas in the drug policy arena.

Trading illicit drugs on cryptomarkets differs in many ways from material retail markets. This paper aims to contribute to existing studies on pricing by studying the relationship between price changes in relation to changes in nominal value of the cryptocurrency. To this, the authors qualitatively study product descriptions and images to expand the knowledge on price formation.

The authors analysed 15 samples based on visual and textual scrapes from two major drug markets – for Dream Market between January 2014 and July 2015 and for Tochka between January 2015 and July 2015. This longitudinal study relates changes in process to variations in the Bitcoin exchange rate and selling strategies. The analysis of the marketing of drugs online also addressed the development of the vendor profile and product offers.

Product prices change in relation to variations in the Bitcoin exchange rate. This points to the application of mechanisms for automatic price adaptations on the market level. Real prices of the drug offers constantly increase. The authors assert that there is a bidirectional relationship. Vendors structure price and discounts to encourage feedback. And feedback in combination with signals of commitment and authenticity inform pricing. Product descriptions are an important feature in the successful marketization of goods, whereas product images are predominantly used as an aspect of recognisability and feature of the vendor’s identity.

Findings suggest that there is great potential for further qualitative research into the relationship between the online and offline identity of drug vendors, as well as price setting when entering the market and subsequent changes for offered products.

Findings also suggest that further investigation into the constitution and management of vendor’s identity on the cryptomarkets would allow a better understanding of vendors and their interactions on cryptomarkets.

A better understanding of drug trading on cryptomarkets helps to more effectively address potentials for harm in the online drug trade. Also targetting crime would benefit from a better understanding of vendor idenities and pricing.

The findings represent a valuable contribution to existing knowledge on drug trading on cryptomarkets, particularly in view of pricing and vending strategies.

For three days in early June 1998 the General Assembly of the United Nations was imbued with an air of unity as members strove to find ‘common ground’ against the escalating drug crisis. The international community had gathered together under the auspices of a special session to contemplate a concerted approach to countering the global drug problem. The latter is perceived to be a grave threat to ‘the well‐being of mankind, the independence of states, democracy, the stability of nations, the structure of all societies, and the dignity and hope of millions of people’.

Cryptomarkets have expanded rapidly since the launch of Silk Road in 2011, offering a significant new mode for the sale and distribution of illicit drugs. One of the key questions accompanying the proliferation of cryptomarkets and online drug distribution concerns how these unique online fora alter relationships between drug suppliers and their customers. Existing research points to an increase in perceptions of safety and respect among people who use cryptomarkets to purchase drugs relative to other ‘offline’ modes of drug acquisition. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that drug suppliers are also attracted to cryptomarkets by perceptions of increased safety, as well as by market norms and institutional processes that are characterised by respect and courteous engagement. These issues fall broadly under what has been termed market ‘gentrification’ – that is, the substitution of offline drug market norms, which are sometimes characterised by violence, intimidation, suspicion, and exploitation, with relative feelings of safety, respect, and courtesy. This chapter explores the ‘gentrification hypothesis’ and examines how the unique structural characteristics of cryptomarkets, which include user feedback and ratings, dispute resolution systems, and administrator and community ‘policing’ of cryptomarkets, as well as online discussion forums, assist in fostering the development of pro-social norms that appear to be prevalent on cryptomarkets.

According to UNDCP's World Drug Report published in 1997, the illicit drug industry's annual turnover is estimated to be US$400bn, roughly equivalent to 8 per cent of total international trade. The profit in the drugs business depends heavily on the availability of precursors. Only opium and cannabis — which are not as costly as heroin and some other drugs — are consumed in a relatively raw form without being chemically processed. Other drugs of abuse require precursor chemicals in their manufacture. In the case of opium, for example, a farmer will be offered only US$80 for 1 kg of opium. With the availability of chemicals, this opium will be converted, in stages, into heroin. The street value of 1 kg of heroin in the United States, for instance, is US$290,000. This staggering profit is only possible if the illicit drug industry can access the chemicals they need for the conversion.