is the credit crunch affecting drugs?

[Liquidcande]

this might be a daft question, but is it affecting the manufacturing and distribution at all?

will it over the next few years?

is it a stupid question to ask? lol

[bman1]

swib would think drug use and manufacturing would increase. More depressed people wanting to escape and get high. More people needing money who will turn to the sale and manufacture of drugs

[RaverHippie]

Originally Posted by Liquidcande

this might be a daft question, but is it affecting the manufacturing and distribution at all?

will it over the next few years?

is it a stupid question to ask? lol

All you'll get for asking that question are inferences and suppositions for answers, it's not like the big MDMA manufacturers have DF accounts and are happy contributors of information.

[Shiacmkmleer]

Originally Posted by bman1

swib would think drug use and manufacturing would increase. More depressed people wanting to escape and get high. More people needing money who will turn to the sale and manufacture of drugs

See but there are more factors at work than just this. Yes people will want to escape and more and more people will be willing to do illegal things [like make drugs] because you know...when you need to feed a family and you've lost your job the law doesn't matter so much.

But people will have less money. People with little money and a desire to get fucked up aren't buying X. They will move to inferior goods [the definition being a good that demand goes up when income goes down I'm not implying any drugs are inferior]. My guess? Cheap alcohol sales go up. If anything the demand for E would go down though.

[Liquidcande]

that will explain why there isnt much good
quality stuff going around

[KomodoMK]

Very subjective. I don't think it would affect drugs supply/trade directly as the credit crunch affects the economy, not the black market economy which is another entity all together. It could be indirectly affected by changes in usage patterns of users as a consequence of the recession though.

[Liquidcande]

yea but....

less usage / less demand = less supply / less supply of better quality substances

[KomodoMK]

Maybe there is a lack of quality in SWIyour area, but here things (I'm told) are the same as they always have been or even a little better in regards to some substances. You can't really say there is less usage either, because whilst some people will taper down their usage, others will increase due to the stress or other factors. People with family's are arguably more likely to reduce usage whilst with the opposite being true for the average single bloke.

My little fishy actually knows of quite a few people who have cut down on visiting pubs/clubs and prefer to stay in at the weekends with friends, drugs and cheap supermarket booze, which ultimately actually saves them money. This is effectively taking the money from the economy and spending it on the black market economy, which results in increasing demand.

How do you explain the correlation between less demand = lower quality substances and vice versa? Surely if there was less demand dealers would be cutting the drugs less in the hope that the users getting the better quality substances would keep returning?

I'm not saying I'm right on the grand scheme of things, just trying to emphasise that it isn't a simple as economy is suffering, people have less money, so people must be buying less, thus less demand bla bla... it's all speculation and assumptions. Just try not to look at things with a one track mind, try to take on all the other perspectives and make an educated guess.

[Liquidcande]

yea, you're right... drugs arent economically driven so the same supply / demand rules dont apply.

i didnt think about it for long enough.

although some manufacturers might sell a less good substance at a cheaper price, to a dealer in an area where the demand has gone down...

[KomodoMK]

Originally Posted by Liquidcande

although some manufacturers might sell a less good substance at a cheaper price, to a dealer in an area where the demand has gone down...

Yeah, I would say that there is a high probability of that happening.

[lovejoy]

Originally Posted by Liquidcande

yea but....

less usage / less demand = less supply / less supply of better quality substances

But a clever businessman may try and increase his sales in another way - marketing (not possible here of course) or a price drop incentive.

Swim took there usual 100m taxi drive round the corner of their flat recently and the fare had been reduced by £5, when asked why the taxi driver actually replied "well, it's the credit crunch innit"

[KomodoMK]

100 metre taxi journey? Not only is that lazy, how the hell did it cost more than a fiver in the first place - let alone be reduced by that amount?

It seems rare to find significant price decreases in drugs without the quality following suit. I think the current state of the economy is going to have little to no effect on the black market economy. Where some people may use less drugs others will use more, balancing itself out overall. Little fishy doesn't know of anyone whose decreased their drug use, and maybe a couple who have increased.

[th3tawav3]

Within a given economy if it is broken down regionally, different conclusions could be made for dfferent countries and states. In high demand areas drugs are flourishing like they always have regardless of the credit crunch and the mortgage crisis and increasing inflation and fluctuating gas prices. If statistics could be taken and were accurate, it would be my guess that consumers of illegal drugs have kept a constant level of demand at a given supply. Densely populated areas and big cities are kept supplied to meet high demands while other areas of the globe suffer from lack of supply or demand/while some more esoteric drugs such as lsd may fall as demand decreases due to less people attending large raves and events of the sort. Just 2 cents.

Not to mention the whole facade of the 'recession' is in the media's portrayal of the situation. Everything is looked at from a shallow, superficial economists perspective which does not take into account the individual experience. I don't think drug trade can be analyzed using the same concepts of macro and micro economics that we learn to apply to our markets, because consumers cannot be assumed to respond in the same way to the market. Its just interesting to think how drug consumption varies so widely and is so indpendent of other societal factors(and dependent at the same time), and cannot be broken down for us to easily understand the truth about production and consumption patterns on a large scale accounting for the total population. Such a thing just cannot be done.

[doublezero]

not for swim, infact theres better drugs at cheaper prices. Swims mentally disabled(thanks doctor for the report), so its all kool here for swim.

swim read ealier that coke is not selling in the states,probably due to the crash and the crystal meth in that cursed land,(native americans probably loving it). luckily for swims people we didnt have jobs anyway, and the dirty acid in the 90's and the h we had to use to comedown has given us a liscence to sit, play, sleep and eat.

If your used to a wod of cash then swim imagines its a comedown of the highest order,,,,,,,,,,,,

if any of you americans out there got a bit of spare cash, change it to pounds and in a few months you'd make a good wod....but to do it properly u need a friend or family in that country or you'd be charged to change it back.....luckily swim has family everywhere. he bought £10'000 us dollars wen it was 2 dollars to 1 pound, he changed it back a few weeks ago and almost doubled his wod, tax free. how swim got £10'000 together he just asked for a few interest free credit cards.....he paid them off. lost about 1%,,,,sorry to ramble,,,,,,,,,,

peace and love.

[Jasim]

There's another issue here that I don't see on the thread yet.

The economic hardships are dramatically effecting government budgets, those same budgets that fund police agencies and anti-drug efforts.

[doublezero]

swim thinks it will be a perfect time for a world wide demonstration about everything we hate,,maybe everyone should go on a strike, save up food and water and gas for fires and sort our world out,,,,,but everyones all talk,,,,,,,,as soon as obama dont do what he promised its kicking off,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,swim cant wait,,,,,,,,,,,the english military hate the goverment and the polie, the police hate the goverment,,,,if it dont change this year, wud it ever,,,those of u with kids that dont want to, imagine the world your kids will be adults, or there spawn. Children these days are all fat wasters sat indoors on computers and exercising in front of uncle nintendo wi.....swim climbed trees, went on walks, played football(soccer) that was b4 swim was 9....swim wud start killing the nonces, but thats illegal

its the chinese year of the sheep, luckily me and my crew are shepards...

rage against the machine,,if u dont take action now, you'll settle for nothing later, that was over 15 years ago.............

swim is of course a fictional character for swims book. i feel swims harddrive being ripped to pieces right now, luckily he has hard drives every where

Reputation Comments on this post:

pointless whinging rant

[Sven99]

Its bound to have some effect. But its almost impossible to predict what

I've read that the gov't is expecting a rise in crime because of the recession, for a few different reasons.

Maybe the spiraling cost of drug enforcement will make politicians see sense and abandon prohibition. I'm not holding my breath, but I think its possible.

[doublezero]

excellent, thought swim wrote some anarchistic stuff the other night,,,,,rise in crime is inevitable, swims favourite child hood story was robin hood.

swim thinks its just natural, if swims mates couldnt feed there babys or pay the mortgage and there loans then i think they would????????????????????????

swim thanks the english goverment for keeping his benefits coming. Its only fair, swims family has paid alot towards tax,swim try's to get it back. Plus all the money swim gets, means theres less to be spent on bombs so its a moral thing aswell. no blood on swims hands where as there is a tax payer.......

swims soul is clean

[Jasim]

Honestly, swim isn't concerned about his job. Swim works for the state government doing drug testing for criminal cases. Because of the work swim does, it is written into state law that the government gives swims lab so much money each year. Swim isn't expecting a raise though, lol.

[Sven99]

SWIyou may well get that raise if the recession pushes more people towards drugs!

I would expect black market activity to increase in a recession. If less people have legitimate jobs, more people are going to consider illegal fundraising options.