Drug gangs mimic legit business
The illicit drug economy is run with alarming efficiency, new research has shown.
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Wednesday, 21, Nov 2007 11:06
The UK's illegal drug trade is managed as if it were a legitimate business, turning over around £8 billion annually, according to a new Home Office report.
A new study has revealed there are around 300 major drug importers operating in the UK, with 3,000 wholesalers and 70,000 street dealers involved in a worryingly efficient economy.
The report - based on prison interviews with 222 high-level drug dealers - describes a "business style" structure, with salaried staff employed as runners, transporters and buyers, and reported that "demand had remained constant or grown in recent years".
While a prison sentence is generally viewed as an "occupational hazard or an unlikely risk", many of those interviewed reported it can be seen as a business opportunity, with the chance to establish new contacts while in prison as well as allowing employees to accrue experience by controlling the enterprise in their boss' absence.
Asset recovery action was reported as the more worrying repercussion of involvement in the drug trade, with dealers fearful of the state seizure of proceeds earned from narcotics.
"People who are arrested are losing everything that they have – even the things they acquired through honest means," one convicted dealer told the research team.
The study was one of seven Home Office drug research reports released yesterday, with another study revealing 332,000 people are still dependent on drugs in England and Wales.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said the number of reports released was unnecessarily high.
"The government have gone back to their bad, old habits," he said.
"Far from being transparent under Gordon Brown, the Home Office has reinstated the old habit of burying the press in statistics, presumably in the hope they will fail to find the key story."
He added: "This is not just spin, it is the very worst form of spin."