Illegal Drug Markets in Practice: The Swedish Cocaine Market

Sammanfattning: Despite being a billion dollar market, there are still many unknowns on how illegal drug markets operate. A possibility for this, is the fact that drug market studies have largely come from law, sociology and economic perspectives. This has led to a lack of understanding on how drug markets work in practice. This thesis aims to provide greater understanding of how illegal drug markets work and puts forth recommendations for further research. The study is based on a market practice approach and focuses on the illegal cocaine market in Sweden, using qualitative interview based research as method. The results of which do demonstrate a lack of knowledge on how illegal drug markets work. Furthermore, the results show how actors representations of the market has greatly influenced how the market is shaped and how further research is needed to expand current information on illegal markets. To increase our understanding of illegal drug markets and illegal markets in general, this paper serves as an example of how a market practice study approach can provide greater knowledge on how illegal drug markets operate.