NCJ Number
238720
Date Published
2010
Length
208 pages
Annotation
This book provides insight into the world of college drug dealers.
Abstract
The book offers novel insight into the world of college drug dealers, exploring issues of deviance, race, and stratification in the U.S. War on Drugs. Chapter 2 explores the first illicit drug market on campus discovered and studied in the course of this research. Chapter 3 uses observational and interview data to more deeply explore what has been identified as six primary motivations for the distribution of illicit drugs among the members of this college dealing network and examine the different motives and rationalizations that exist among dealers in the pharmaceutical market. Chapter 4 explores the prescription drug market; Adderall and OxyContin are traded relatively freely among college students, for different reasons and significantly less money than the aforementioned illicit drugs. Also discussed is the secondary market in terms of what drugs are sold, the size and scale of the market, how drugs are obtained, and dealer/user characteristics. Chapter 5 discusses the dealers' perceptions of self and how members of networks view themselves in light of ongoing participation in illegal activity. It also explores how they justify and neutralize their illicit behavior and how other people's opinions of the dealers are influenced by the dealers' views of themselves. Chapter 6 examines the "un-risky" business of drug sales at and around a private college campus; actual versus perceived risks and network's dealers' competence as criminals in light of the risks; and how dealers are treated by the criminal justice system and university officials. Chapter 7 provides a follow-up of the outcome of the dealers' illicit lifestyle. This chapter ends with a brief discussion and reflective assessment of U.S. drug policy. Data collected over 3 years of fieldwork at a predominately white private university. Notes, bibliography, and index