Fronts and Friends: Social Contingencies in the Management of Drug Debt

ABSTRACT

Illicit drug markets have long been associated with violence as a mode of regulating market behavior, especially regarding debts linked to drug purchase. While a growing literature examines violent and nonviolent modes of ensuring repayment by dealers and lenders, little research has focused on strategies of buyers and borrowers in navigating drug debt. Drawing on interviews with 75 people who use drugs within a materially disadvantaged neighborhood, we explore experiences in managing debt to dealers and within social networks adjacent to drug markets. Findings describe complex strategies to protect reputation, foster relationships with dealers, and employ cooperative, assertive, or coercive tactics to negotiate credit arrangements that sustain and stabilize the drug market while mitigating violent retaliation for unpaid debt. Findings also elucidate informal credit arrangements within social networks, identifying reciprocity and self-control as constitutive of social capital within friendship groups that serve as financial and social safety nets. This research considers socially embedded, boundedly rational decisions of marginalized drug market actors, highlighting diverse financial management practices among structurally vulnerable borrowers that serve economic and social goals while seeking to mitigate the risk of violence.

KEYWORDS:

• Illicit drug use
• drug markets
• trust
• socioeconomic marginalization
• qualitative methods
• bounded rationality

INTRODUCTION

Illicit drug markets have traditionally been associated with violence as a mode of regulating market behavior, especially regarding debts linked to drug purchase (Beckert and Wehinger 2012; Browning, Dietz, and Feinberg 2004; Gambetta 2000; Jacobs and Wright 2010; Pierce et al. 2017). Within inner-city drug markets, consistent demand for drugs paired with intermittent income among people who use drugs positions drug-related debt, including obtaining drugs on credit from a dealer, central to the drug economy, creating conditions for retributive violence for unpaid debt (Adler 1993; Jacques, Wright, and Allen 2014; Moeller and Sandberg 2017; Venkatesh 1997). Prior research illustrates how vulnerabilities across socio-structural domains can impact exposure to violence among people who use drugs, including socioeconomic marginalization (Richardson et al. 2015), barriers to employment (Danziger and Seefeldt 2003; Richardson, Wood, and Kerr 2013; Roelfs et al. 2011), illegal or street-based income generation (Jaffe et al. 2018; Shannon et al. 2008; Small et al. 2013), housing precarity (Desmond 2016; Fleming et al. 2023; Kennedy et al. 2017; Zivanovic et al. 2015), barriers to health and social services (Brayne 2014; Dutton et al. 2018; McNeil et al. 2014), policing (Baćak and Apel 2020; Jacques and Allen 2015), and gendered or intersectional violence (Boyd et al. 2018; Culhane 2003; McNeil et al. 2014). These multiple institutional social forces produce an illicit drug market where people who use drugs are compelled to manage substance use, finances, and personal safety in the absence of adequate legal income streams and institutional supports.

Dominant explanations of drug market behavior rely on bounded rationality frameworks (Simon 1955), wherein purely rational economic behavior is impossible given limitations on information, time, and complexity of choices. As actions are embedded within intricate social contexts (Coleman 1988; Granovetter 1985; Karlan et al. 2009), actors make decisions by applying heuristics to satisfice – make satisfactory rather than perfect economic decisions. Thus, actions by drug suppliers, including response to unpaid debt, are influenced not only by economic goals but also by social concerns such as norms, structure, status, and the social distance of transaction partners. Violence may be strategically avoided if it infringes on economic or social interests (Coomber and Maher 2006; Decker and Chapman 2008; Dickinson 2019; Dwyer and Moore 2010; Jacobs and Wright 2010; Jacques 2010; Jacques and Allen 2015; Jacques and Wright 2008; Moeller and Sandberg 2015, 2017; Reuter and MacCoun 1992; Venkatesh 2006), or deliberately deployed to heighten status or economic gain (Bourgois 1998, 2003, 2009; Curtis and Wendel 2007; Dickinson 2019; Fagan 1992; Jacques and Wright 2010; Marshall et al. 2008; Richardson et al. 2015; Small et al. 2013). Jacques and colleagues demonstrate that dealer decisions whether to enact retaliatory violence are affected by both instrumental and social concerns (Jacques 2010; Jacques and Allen 2015; Jacques, Wright, and Allen 2014); contending that dealers make rational choices about which customers to defraud or treat generously based on evaluations of status and social distance of buyer(Jacques, Allen, and Wright 2014). Greater relational, organizational, or cultural distance increases likelihood of predation and fraud (Jacques and Wright 2010), and decreases the likelihood of nonpredatory reciprocation involved in gifts and credit (Jacques and Wright 2008). “In short, closer social distance leads to lower drug costs” (Jacques and Wright 2010: 18). Such contentions challenge notions that street violence occurs spontaneously among criminals lacking self-control (Burt 2020), arguing instead that decisions to enact violence involve boundedly rational consideration of temporally extended consequences shaped by contextual, interactional, and individual factors including emotional considerations.

However, rationality frameworks are applied less frequently to explain decisions by low-status,structurally vulnerable people who use drugs beyond framing substance use as pursuit of maximal pleasure and minimal discomfort within structurally violent circumstances (Becker and Murphy 1988; Jacobs 1998). While ethnographic research has unpacked the internal logics of harm reduction practices (Bourgois 1998; Small et al. 2011), status hierarchies (Bourgois 1998; Coomber 2003; Jacobs 1998), income generation activities (Bourgois 1995, 2009; Faupel 1987; Preble and Casey 1969), enforcement evasion techniques (Bourgois 2009; Moore 1977), and treatment motivations (Bourgois 2009), important questions remain about rational action involving drug purchase, drug use, credit decisions, debt management, and, critically, mitigating exposure to violence. If debt – especially when combined with structural vulnerability – is adeterminant of violence, what preventive strategies lower risk? How do processes within social networks strengthen or undermine safety? Amidst escalating drug-related harm, greater understanding of the socio-structural dimensions of violence mitigation within communities of people who use drugs is critical, including financial management strategies that may reduce violence linked to drug purchase and drug-related debt.

Credit and Trust

As with other markets for banned goods that lack institutional mechanisms to enforce contractual obligations and resolve conflict, illicit drug markets have been linked to opportunistic predation, coercion, and violent retribution for violations including failure to repay debt (Anglin and Speckart 1986; Beckert and Wehinger 2012; Fagan 1992; Fields 1984; Gambetta 2000; Jacobs 1998; Jacobs and Wright 2010; Pierce et al. 2017; Reuter and MacCoun 1992). In investigating the etiology of violence in drug markets, Goldstein highlights structural conditions that produce “traditionally aggressive patterns of interaction within the system of drug distribution and use,” asserting that violence is regularly used to resolve territorial disputes, enforce hierarchies, and punish behavior that undermines economic objectives (Goldstein 1985: 497). Research among marginalized populations has pointed to higher likelihood of violent victimization among people who use drugs when compared to the general population (Degenhardt et al. 2019; Marshall et al. 2008; Richardson et al. 2015; Robinson 2010; Werb et al. 2011) and substantiated the association of “everyday violence” with drug markets, showing that drug-suppliers use violence to assert market dominance or deter violations from rivals and customers, such as robbing, “snitching,” showing disrespect, or defaulting on loans (Bourgois 1998, 2003; Curtis and Wendel 2007; Dickinson 2019; Jacobs and Wright 2010; Marshall et al. 2008; Richardson et al. 2015; Small et al. 2013).

However, building on literature highlighting relational factors in illicit drug markets, including the role of trust and reputation (Fields 1984; Jacobs 1998; Langer 1977), social networks (Adler 1993; Bourgois 1995; Fagan 1992; Faupel 1987; Reuter and MacCoun 1992; Venkatesh 1997), and decision-making processes (Anglin and Speckart 1986; Moore 1977; Preble and Casey 1969), recent qualitative studies explore the complexities of drug market governance in inner-city communities, showing how economic behavior is embedded in socio-structural contexts and networks (Coleman 1988; Granovetter 1985) and informed by cultural and social considerations. For example, Jacques, Allen, and Wright (2014) highlight the structural conditions of prohibition that amplify predation and retaliatory violence, but demonstrate that dealers often deploy nonviolent social control to negotiate “peaceful” resolutions. Violence is avoided as being too costly, it disrupts business, attracts attention from police, drains organizational resources, and provokes retaliation from competitors and victims (Decker and Chapman 2008; Venkatesh 2006), and is described as a tool of last resort in street-based markets (Bourgois 2009; Coomber and Maher 2006; Dickinson 2019; Dwyer and Moore 2010; Jacques, Wright, and Allen 2014; Moeller and Sandberg 2017) or as culturally inappropriate within social-supply markets (Langer 1977; Taylor and Potter 2013).

In lieu of violence, given uncertainty inherent in drug transactions due to difficulty vetting transaction partners (Carruthers 2013), decisions whether to sell drugs on credit (colloquially called “fronting” or “cuffing”) must rely on relationships, trust, and information available through social networks to mitigate risk of fraud, predation, and default. Transactions in marginalized settings may be conceptualized as a mechanism of social exchange, and debt as a structure of mutual trust and obligation (Dwyer and Moore 2010; Fligstein and Dauter 2007; Gambetta and Przepiorka 2014; Graeber 2011; Ladegaard 2020). Due to threat of prosecution, exchange in illegal markets requires actors to protect commercial interests as well as conceal activities from authorities (Beckert and Wehinger 2012; Moeller and Sandberg 2015). As assessments of trustworthiness are derived from conjecture of trustee capability and motivation (Robbins 2016), trust emerges under conditions where the outcome is unknown, involving potential losses and gains, and where betrayal is possible but benevolence is expected (Gambetta 2009). This expression of expectation and obligation is embedded in drug transactions, especially in credit situations where financial risk is asymmetrical. For example, Moeller and Sandberg (2015) describe cooperative arrangements between suppliers and street-dealers to resolve unpaid debt that rely on relationships built over time; Dwyer and Moore (2010) identify modes of exchange (trade, barter, gifts, fraud) based on relationship between street-dealer and buyer, involving “clientization” practices such as guaranteeing fair price for regular customers; and Dickinson (2019) shows that closeness of relationship between suppliers and customers determines dealers’ response to conflict.

Consequently, drug purchase may be seen as a component of ritualized interactive practices around drug use (Collins 2005; Goffman 1983; Zinberg, Harding, and Winkeller 1977), an act of in-group solidarity and shared engagement in an illegal and therefore risk-infused interaction. A transaction wherein a buyer obtains drugs on credit from a regular dealer involves mutual vulnerability, dependence, and trust (Granovetter 1985; Robbins 2016): the dealer must trust the buyer to honor the debt, the buyer must trust the dealer to sell them drugs of the quality specified (Coomber 2003: 2006), and both must cooperate to reduce risk of arrest. This mutual dependency requires that all parties protect how they are regarded within the relationship, the buyer through diligence in paying debt as agreed and the dealer through extending credit and providing consistent product for a fair price (Coomber and Maher 2006; Dwyer and Moore 2010; Gambetta and Przepiorka 2014; Moeller and Sandberg 2015). Building and maintaining a desirable reputation involves trust-signaling, a demonstration of diligence, generosity, gratitude, and loyalty (Gambetta 2009: 2014). The expression and repayment of trust operates as a social signaling mechanism that influences competitive and cooperative behavior (Beckert and Wehinger 2012; Carruthers 2013; Diekmann et al. 2014; Fligstein and Dauter 2007; Ladegaard 2020) and is relevant to the borrowing and lending behavior of marginalized drug market actors.

This paper analyzes people who front, buy, and use drugs as socially bounded rational actors who are heavily influenced by social considerations, such as social distance/proximity, local normative expectations, and the social and symbolic capital of other drug market actors as they weigh the utility of available options. In situations where risks, consequences, and optimal courses of action are unknowable, bounded rationality (Simon 1955) frames actors as reliant on cognitive shortcuts or “acquired instincts” to arrive at an adequate course of action. In Simon’s conceptualization, rationality is bounded by constraints on time and capacity to collect and process salient information, but also because decision-making processes are socially embedded and structured by external context as well as internalized dispositions and preferences (Bourdieu 1984; Carruthers 2013; Fligstein and Dauter 2007; Hayes 2020). In the current analysis, the criminalization of drugs and stigmatization of drug use amplifies uncertainty through the suppression of information about transactional partners, rendering social capital and relational distance key to credit decisions.

Bourdieu’s (1984) conceptualization of social capital as potential resources available through durable social networks, accruing benefits to individuals through “deliberate construction of sociability” (Portes 1998), becomes relevant in this regard. In the absence of economic capital, moral worth has evolved into a form of symbolic capital that constrains or encourages economic choices within marginalized communities (Lamont 2000; Sherman 2006). In this way, reputation is a form of social capital available within networks, exchangeable for other forms of capital and material goods, and describes the mechanism by which trust relationships in drug markets are built, how lender/dealers signal trustworthiness and select competent borrowers, how borrower/buyers signal reliability, access credit, and select fair lenders, and how friends govern loans and reciprocal arrangements within social networks. Additionally, the deliberate construction of a trustworthy reputation is critical to avoid incurring non-pecuniary social sanctions including violent retribution for unpaid debt.

However, despite advances in understanding illicit drug markets, questions remain about the role of social capital in the experiences and decision-making processes of marginalized drug market actors. Previous research on the “economics of fronting” (Moeller and Sandberg 2015: 697) examines trust and network relationships within drug distribution networks, exploring the perspective of high-level suppliers (Adler 1993; Decker and Chapman 2008), mid-level dealers (Curtis and Wendel 2007; Dickinson 2019; Jacques and Wright 2008; Moeller and Sandberg 2015, 2017), and street-dealers who sell drugs on consignment or work for higher-level suppliers (Bourgois 1998, 2003, 2009; Coomber and Maher 2006; Dwyer and Moore 2010), describing street-dealers’ efforts to protect reputation and reduce chance of retaliation (Jacobs 1998). Past research also examines suppliers within anonymous online markets (Ladegaard 2020) as well as closed-market social supply where friends deal cannabis or party drugs within friendship circles (Taylor and Potter 2013). However, less attention has been paid to the strategies undertaken by the end consumer, especially marginalized people who use drugs, to manage the harms associated with obtaining drugs on credit; how dealer-buyer dynamics and informal credit structures and exchanges within social networks may influence conditions that lead to violence; and how mechanisms of social support and sanction encourage culturally appropriate behavior within street-based markets. Additionally, literature examining drug-market dynamics from the perspective of dealers has not explicitly considered how buyer strategies may influence experiences of survival-level dealers.

To address these gaps, we interviewed people within an inner-city neighborhood in Vancouver, Canada to explore the following questions: what does debt management mean to structurally vulnerable borrowers; what are the strategies undertaken to mitigate debt-related violence; and how do social networks among socio-economically marginalized people who use drugs shape these strategies? We build on work in illicit drug markets examining cooperative arrangements between dealers and buyers, investments in relationships, and nonviolent modes of governance to understand purposive actions within broader social networks as overlooked components of credit arrangements. Given that violence is imposed on people against their will, gaining an understanding of how drug market actors negotiate credit arrangements and debt repayment via careful management of reputation is an important contribution to this literature. By identifying reputation and trust-signaling as tools to maintain relationships and manage debt, we challenge conceptualizations that violence is inevitable within street-level drug markets.

METHODS

This article draws on qualitative interviews gathered as a component of the TASA Study (The impact on Alternative Social Assistance disbursement on drug-related harm) described in detail elsewhere (Richardson et al. 2016). Conducted between November 2015 and January 2019, TASA is a mixed-methods field experimental study involving an exploratory, parallel group, unblinded randomized controlled trial testing whether changing the timing and frequency of support payments is effective in reducing drug-related harm that historically increases around synchronized government payments (Otterstatter et al. 2016; Richardson et al. 2021; Zlotorzynska et al. 2014). One hundred and ninety-four people who use illicit substances (i.e. excluding alcohol and cannabis), were in receipt of government cash benefits, reported increased drug use around payments, and were willing to change the timing and frequency of payments were recruited through chain referral sampling, outreach, and advertisements in medical and community spaces throughout the community.

A nested, parallel qualitative evaluation collected the data used in the current analysis. Using maximum variation sampling to allow for a range of experiences and perspectives (Suri 2011), we recruited 75 participants into the qualitative sub-study (see Table 1), conducting 121 interviews between November 2015 and March 2018. Qualitative interviews capture experiences transitioning to and receiving support payments on an altered schedule, and impact on existing drug use patterns, associated harms, and financial management strategies, including drug purchase and drug-related debt. To explore patterns of drug debt and exposure to violence we asked: Do you ever take on debts to obtain drugs? Under what circumstances? How do you repay your debts? Have you settled drug debts on and around check issue days? What happens if you don’t settle outstanding debts on check day? Have you experienced negative consequences, including violence, related to drug debt? Prior to data collection, we obtained written informed consent. Participants were compensated $30 for full-length and $15 for brief interviews in alignment with standard rates in similar studies. The decision to offer remuneration was based on contentions that it is paternalistic and prejudicial to refuse to compensate structurally vulnerable participants for their time and expertise due to active drug use (Collins et al. 2017). The study received ethical approval from the University of British Columbia/Providence Health Care Research Ethics Board. Interviews lasted between 15 and 90 minutes, were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and uploaded into NVivo.

Table 1. Sample demographics (n = 75).

	N (%)
Age
Mean = 45.6, Min = 25, Max = 60, Median = 46, IQR = 41–52
20–39	15 (20%)
40–49	34 (45%)
50+	26 (35%)
Ethnicity
Indigenous	27 (36%)
Asian	3 (4%)
White	45 (60%)
Self-identified Gender
Women^†	33 (44%)
Men ˆ	42 (56%)
Housing
Stable housing	54 (72%)
Shelter	5 (7%)
Recovery	5 (7%)
Unhoused^π	11 (15%)
Income Generation
Dealing	13 (17%)
Sex work	9 (12%)
Theft	2 (3%)
Employment	10 (13%)
Binning, vending, panhandling, selling cigarettes	21 (28%)
Volunteer stipends^Ω	7 (9%)
No income generation	26 (35%)
Drug use at first interview
Opioid use ≥10 days in past 2 weeks	8 (11%)
Stimulant use ≥10 days in past 2 weeks	12 (16%)
Poly drug use ≥10 days in past 2 weeks^ƒ	6 (8%)
Moderate use ≥ 5 and ≤9 days in past 2 weeks	13 (17%)
Occasional use ≥4 days in past 2 weeks	21 (28%)
No hard drug use (may report alcohol or cannabis) in past 2 weeks	15 (20%)

^†includes 2 trans women.

ˆincludes 1 trans man.

^πincludes sleeping outdoors, couch surfing, living in tent city.

^Ωdefined as performing a discrete task for a small honorarium, usually $3–$10

^ƒopioid and stimulant used concurrently.

percentages rounded to nearest whole number, some totals exceed 100%.

We conducted exploratory analyses of debt strategies undertaken by borrowers and lenders to mitigate debt-related violence. As with other studies among marginalized people who use drugs where participants oscillate in and out of dealing illicit substances (Bourgois 2009; Jacobs 1998; Small etal. 2013), aportion (17%) of our participants reported engaging in street-level dealing, thereby inhabiting both lender/dealer and borrower/buyer roles, often answering questions from both perspectives. Initial coding was based on interview topic guides, and extracted descriptions of financial management, social interaction, and violence to examine patterns of drug debt and the impact of social ties on navigating debt. To understand how debt reverberated in peoples’ lives, what it meant to owe different types of lenders, and measures taken to manage debts, we collected descriptions of social control linked to drug debt, including forcing, pressuring, or encouraging. We drew on typologies of drug-related violence (Goldstein 1985) and resource exchange-social control (Jacques and Wright 2008) to understand drug market violence and modes of governance as well as modes of reciprocal or unidirectional exchange within drug markets, including trade, sales, barter, service, gift, predation and theft (Dwyer and Moore 2010; Moeller and Sandberg 2017).

Following a flexible coding approach (Deterding and Waters 2018), we identified emerging themes of negotiation, reputational processes, and social dimensions of debt. Building on existing research on the etiology of violence in drug markets, this investigation centers on low-level dealer strategies alongside explicit focus on uncovering the meanings that marginalized people who buy, borrow, and use illicit drugs ascribed to drug transactions, what informed their decisions to take on debt, how their social ties and social position impacted their and others’ behavior, and the consequences of borrowing decisions.

Reliability tests addressed concerns about reproducibility and ascertained the intersubjective stability of the coding schematic (Campbell et al. 2013). We selected a representative sample of the interview transcripts comprising approximately 10% of the data, demarcated units of text to be coded, and trained an independent coder on the thematic framework, analytic approach, and the specific context in which the study took place. The independent coder then analyzed the sample text using the coding schematic, yielding above 82% interrater reliability for all domains, confirming the stability of the coding schematic (Banerjee et al. 1999).

However, we note important limitations. Although our sample was diverse across gender and ethno-racial categories, 80% of the sample was over 40 years old. As the effects of age on drug use trajectories is well documented (Pierce et al. 2017), this potentially limits generalizability of themes and processes that may escalate or counteract exposure to violence across younger age groups. Additionally, while many characteristics of the study context are exemplary of other urban drug markets including prohibition, law enforcement, material marginalization, systemic racism, colonialism, systemic neglect, and “everyday violence” (Bourgois 1998), there are key contextual differences in drug policy (legalized cannabis) and harm reduction services (supervised consumption facilities) that could restrict generalizability to other socio-political contexts.

RESULTS

Managing Debt to Dealers

The necessity of procuring drugs in the absence of steady income streams has created a drug market built on credit, requiring that dealers maintain control over debts owed. While debt-related violence did occur, transactions overwhelmingly reflected the routine and mundane nature of the marketplace (Coomber and Maher 2006; Dwyer and Moore 2010; Jacques and Wright 2010; Moeller and Sandberg 2015, 2017). We found that negotiation, not violence, was the most common strategy to regulate debt. Drawing on Dwyer and Moore (2010), we define negotiation as intentional discussions between lender and borrower to purchase drugs on credit or refinance existing debt. Refinancing involved negotiating incremental payments, penalties/late fees, exchanging valuable items or favors, working off debt (typically via higher-risk labor within the drug trade), or forgiving debt, and ranged in nature from cooperative to coercive, often depending on which party instigated discussions. While negotiation precluded outright force, the “visible hand” of dealer threats and violence was crucial in bolstering the effectiveness of “peaceful” negotiation (Moeller and Sandberg 2017: 291). Thus, dealers’ willingness to negotiate and accommodate buyers’ circumstances not only increased likelihood of full repayment, but was an effective tool of social control. Clientization practices like refinancing helped cultivate a reputation for fairness and introduced a debt of gratitude and obligation in borrowers, thereby securing a loyal client base and steady income stream without potential costs of violence. For buyers, maintaining good standing with dealers by initiating refinancing negotiations was an effective strategy to mitigate violence and maintain a reliable supply of drugs.

Cooperative Negotiation: “So, Yeah, I Guess I Better Go Talk to That Guy.”

Much of the time, negotiation was mutually beneficial and cooperative. Negotiation was contingent on relationship and demonstrations of trustworthiness, and for many participants, cultivating reputation and “sociability” was an ongoing intentional process. Ethan,¹ an Indigenous man in his forties spoke about efforts to build his reputation as a viable credit risk:

I don’t worry too much about what other people could bring to me ‘cause I’ll bring it back to them and they know that. A lot of people know that I’m not somebody to fuck with, [but] right now I’m pretty humble, I’m trying to put out that next phase of “I’m trustworthy, I’m a decent guy, I’m a good guy, please pull me onto your side, please cuff me some dope, please, give me the best price and all that stuff.”

While his reputation for hardness protected him from predation, Ethan recognized that purposive signaling of humility and trustworthiness would build relationships with lenders and facilitate cooperative negotiation. The importance of relationship was highlighted by Madeline, a white woman in her fifties, who unfailingly repaid her debts “not because of fears of reprisal. I don’t entertain such fears. It’s just because they were, you know, nice enough to do that.” The interplay of trust and obligation in the relationship and her assessment of the dealer’s fairness kept her as a loyal customer. For Isaac, a white man in his forties, it was the threat of violence that motivated trustworthiness:

[T]hat’s what we agreed on and I always pay my dues. That’s one thing, you’ve got to pay. [Owing] the government [for tickets] is one thing, but a pusher, it’s another. [Government] is not going to come over and break your legs, whereas the pusher will.

As these examples show, the perceived generosity, fairness – and potential brutality – of the lender strengthened the borrower’s obligation to uphold the contract, which in turn signaled trustworthiness, strengthened relationship, and granted continued access to credit.

Cooperative credit or refinancing negotiations involving proactive communication and trust-signaling almost always carried mutual benefit: full repayment of debt, continued access to drugs, maintenance of customer relationship, and avoidance of violence. Johnny, an Indigenous man in his forties, described ongoing cooperative arrangements with his dealer: “I just pay him back when I get money from [working] or my [support] check or whoever. He just goes, ‘[Here.] Pay me later.’ He knows he can trust me.” However, even established buyer/dealer relationships required diligence. When her support payment was delayed, Bea, an Indigenous woman in her thirties proactively sought out her dealer to negotiate repayment:

Friends were understanding, but a dealer is different, right? It’s business. They have bills to pay too, right? He’s just like, “Okay, this is where I stand, I won’t cuss at you, I’m just laying down the line, understanding bills need to be paid.” So when [getting our check] didn’t happen on time, he was upset but nobody got hurt. And then when it did happen, we paid down what we could.

Demonstrations of compliance and appreciation could preserve a relationship with a dealer even when a payment was missed. Ethan, who engaged in street-level dealing, described a customer making amends:

He’s somebody that I’m gonna remember too, that he does keep his word when he owes you. You know he fucked up and he didn’t pay it when he said he was going to, but, as soon as he got his [check] on Monday he came to me, he made sure I was there, he gave me the full $10 bucks and gave me an extra $10. So I mean, that was pretty cool.

These examples highlight how demonstrations of proactivity, compliance, flexibility, and good faith were critical in cultivating the relationship between buyer and dealer, facilitating credit and refinancing negotiations, and reducing conditions for retributive violence.

Coercive Negotiation: “If They Don’t Pay Today There’s Gonna Be Extra Consequences Tomorrow.”

Negotiation was not always cooperative, however. When borrowers reneged on credit agreements, they were subject to coercive negotiation involving reputational damage, credit denial, or extortion. Consequences escalated as transgressions accumulated; initial lapses were punished with reputational and financial harm and subsequent violations risked physical consequences, especially when normative displays of respect and compliance, central to cooperative negotiation, were flouted. However, we found coercive negotiation, although often threatening, rarely involved outright violence. Isaac described witnessing a neighbor in his residential hotel being “taxed” by their dealer after defaulting on a loan:

[The neighbor] said he’d pay him the next day, and he never paid him. [Our dealer] went to his room, “You got my $10 bucks?” [The neighbor’s] like, “No, it’s only $10 bucks.” “You should’ve never say that buddy,” and [the dealer] gave him a good push. “Your TV right there, pick it up! [Take it to] my room.”

Although the borrower’s disrespect invited retaliation, the dealer opted to seize a disproportionately valuable item, serving his own economic and reputational ends without resorting to violence. His action combined threat, justice, and clemency – as violence was justified but not used – reinforcing both dominance and moral authority, while keeping the door open to future dealings. Thus, for the borrower, paying a tax – even when coerced – could protect relationship with dealer and forestall violence.

We also found that a financial penalty could offset the loss of social capital from breaking an agreement. Mason, a white man in his forties who had missed payments to his dealer, recounted paying an extortionate penalty to avoid the violence he had experienced previously: “I didn’t even actually owe any money, really. But, you know, I paid the money anyway, just to keep the peace, right? Like, pay whatever tax and just be done.” Similarly, Hazel, an Indigenous woman in her forties willingly accepted the usurious interest imposed on late payments: “I pay double. Yeah, it’s really expensive to make them wait.” These experiences highlight that charging double, exacting a sizable “tax”, or confiscating valuables were considered fair and proportionate dealer responses to borrowers’ untrustworthiness, and despite flagrantly unbalanced terms, participants willingly acquiesced to coercive negotiation to salvage reputation and ease threat of violence.

We also found instances of borrowers deploying coercive negotiation tactics to resist dealers’ unethical business practices, unwarranted threats of violence, or refusal to negotiate. Johnny recounted strategically withholding payments to protest a dealer’s intimidation tactics: “I bought dope off him like more than six, eight months ago, and it wasn’t any good, it was shitty dope. That’s partly why I don’t want to pay him. And he was away [in jail] for months. And he is such a loser and threatened me with ‘It’s out of my hands now.’ Whatever that means.” Johnny, who diligently paid his regular dealer, refused to pay when normative expectations of fairness were transgressed. This dealer had sold substandard product, disappeared for six months, and then rejected Johnny’s culturally appropriate bid to refinance when he returned, discounting Johnny’s reputation for trustworthiness and immediately threatening violence. Johnny’s negotiation tactic of withholding payment repudiated the status injury inherent in the dealer’s threat, clearly demonstrating key social components of economic behavior and the value of social status, fairness, and trust within the drug market. Strategic default communicated that negotiation, not violence, was the more effective tool to ensure repayment.

Assertive Discontinuation: “I Stopped Lending People Money. No More Mr. Nice Guy”

When cooperative or coercive negotiation was untenable, dealers sanctioned customers by denying credit or “cutting off” drug sales. While often failing to recoup debt, ostracism from a key relationship was an effective deterrence and retributive strategy, constraining transactional choices, and potentially damaging borrower’s reputations. Among participants who engaged in street-level dealing – all of whom lived in the community and used drugs – assertive discontinuation was preferred over violence which could be socially costly as well as ineffectual. When asked how he responded to customers missing payments, Elijah, an Indigenous man in his forties, responded: “I really, really want to hurt them, but it’s not me. I just don’t bother with them no more.” Despite the financial penalty, Elijah opted to protect his social identity, responding to untrustworthiness by enacting social rather than physical sanctions. Within established dealer-buyer relationships, this strategy was remarkably effective in deterring credit violations, with borrowers describing discontinuation as significant social harm. Isaac recounted being relegated to cash-only sales after multiple defaults: “Well, I got the money and I went to knock [at my dealer’s] but nobody answered. I should’ve waited but I went and spent some cash and … Ow! He didn’t front me after. I had to pay fuckin’ cash.” For Isaac, being denied credit was painful: his failure to repay had undermined his reputation and relationship with his dealer, impeded access to drugs, and constrained his economic choices. However, as with extortionary repayment terms and cooperation, assertive discontinuation acted as a critical buffer to violence. For street-level dealers who lived and used drugs in the community, revoking customer privileges offered a third way to respond to default without the mutually costly resolution of enacting violence.

Opting Out: “I Won’t Front Drugs. I’ve Seen What Happens to People, and It’s Not Good.”

The mechanisms discussed thus far – cooperative negotiation, coercive negotiation, and assertive discontinuation – mainly reinforced dealers’ social position and control of the drug market. Importantly, borrowers sometimes resisted this dynamic by opting out of trust-based relationships that were prerequisites for credit, asserting a social identity of self-sufficiency and self-control through prioritizing future consequences over immediate gratification (Burt 2020). Lucy, a white woman in her thirties, described how limiting debt was instrumental in maintaining a reputation for self-control:

I usually keep it to a minimum, like $20 bucks, and it’s only if I know that I have money the next day. I’m not even allowed to borrow that much [laughs], like, I limit myself, you know, ‘cause I don’t like to be the person who’s asking for things.

For Lucy, owing too much for too long carried risk of financial and social exposure. She imposed constraints on the timing and amount borrowed, intentionally precluded negotiation, centering herself – not her dealer – as in control of her debts.

We encountered similar self-imposed constraints on borrowing among participants seeking to stop or reduce drug use. Levy, a white man in his thirties who was in recovery, constrained access to drugs by forgoing relationships with dealers: “I don’t want to develop or cultivate another relationship with a dealer to the point where I can get cuffs again. Don’t want them. Don’t need them. You have to build a relationship with a dealer before they’re going to cuff you dope. They have to know you.” This goal of controlling drug use through self-exclusion from relationship-based credit was expressed by Ruby, an Indigenous woman in her thirties: “First of all, I don’t know any dealer well enough that they would trust me and everything. I don’t want to be able to have the option. If dealers give me their numbers, I always just delete them because I don’t want to allow myself to have easy access.” To control drug use, these participants made deliberative decisions to opt out of social connection with dealers, thereby protecting themselves from coercion and harm.

Failure of Negotiation: “They Didn’t Believe Me.”

As violence had been identified as apotential risk of study involvement, violent incidents were closely monitored. Although rare, debt-related violence did occur despite the use of strategies described above. One instance occurred when cooperative negotiation failed to recoup debts and repair trust. Cherry, a white woman in her thirties, had been “fired” several months prior when the drugs she had been fronted to sell on consignment had gone missing. She had negotiated incremental repayment of the wholesale cost, but when her support check was delayed, her attempt to defer payment was violently rebuffed: “I got beaten up ‘cause I couldn’t pay. I wasn’t getting a welfare check on welfare day, and I just didn’t want to have that debt hanging over my head and my safety being in jeopardy. But yeah, they didn’t believe me. I think they still don’t believe that I wasn’t getting my check on time.” Despite proactive efforts to negotiate following months of meeting payments, the lenders distrusted Cherry’s explanation, violently punishing her malfeasance.

Another case of debt-related violence involved “social collateral,” whereby participants offered up their connections as collateral to secure access to informal borrowing (Karlan et al. 2009). Marla, an Indigenous woman in her forties, described being forced to pay off her ex-boyfriend’s debt after being unknowingly proffered as guarantor:

I was taken by two guys and brought behind [my bank], and they asked me straight out [to pay $130], or they’ll make chopped meat of [him]. And I can see him down the alley, they’re feeding him the beats, man, like he’s bleeding, and because he has nothing they come and get it from me. Even though we weren’t together, I didn’t want no problems, so I just paid them. But I only had $60.00, and as aresult of that I got physically hit in the head. All ‘cause [he] told them, “My partner will pay.”

As Marla had no preexisting relationship with the lenders, she was unable to renegotiate financing or mobilize resistance strategies such as withholding payment until reasonable demands were tabled. The social penalties of collateralized network connections – along with escalated physical consequences – were activated against her as an identified member of her ex-boyfriend’s network. Although the violence Marla experienced was also linked to intimate partner and lateral violence rooted in colonial oppression, this case nonetheless demonstrates that negotiation was not a panacea, clearly emphasizing the importance of trust and social proximity in safely navigating drug debt.

Managing Debt to Friends

Thus far, this analysis identifies strategies to navigate monetary debt owed to dealers. A second context for debt incurred by participants were informal “IOUs” of money, favors, or drugs within social networks. As with credit arrangements with dealers, trust and relationship were critical to social-network-based exchanges. As socially bounded rational actors, participants explicitly prioritized reciprocity and social cohesion, safeguarding relationships through unequivocal demonstrations of gratitude, generosity, and trustworthiness. When asked if friends charged interest, Noah, a white man in his forties described norms of reciprocal exchange: “No, but I gave them [five bucks] anyway. Just because I wanted to, you know. But they would have done it anyway. My friends, for sure, we always help each other out.” Similarly, Owen, a white man in his forties, recounted: “What happens with my friends, is anytime they get money, like, ‘Hey, sweet, $200!,’ they just blow the whole $200 on us on drugs and booze and just spend it all, right down to nothing.” Within intimate networks, transactional decisions were shaped by normative expectations of generosity, and desire to maintain social position and connection.

Collective Negotiation: “You Drunk Me Now and I’ll Drunk You Later”

Within cohesive networks, reciprocal exchange – of money, drugs, loans, gifts, and favors – built social capital, and was key to eligibility for future aid, showing how a reputation as trustworthy or generous was exchangeable for other forms of capital or material goods. When asked about strategies when “short on money,” Ethan described the importance of reciprocity to daily survival: “It comes back almost all the time. It’s almost like karma. Give a little, take a little. So many people have been there for me when I was dope-sick.” Noah was similarly explicit: “I know when I have money, I help people. I’m not asking: ‘Oh, you owe me this because I did that.’ But I mean, if you’re nice to people, people will be nice back, eventually.” Beyond building social connection, these examples highlight the financial safety net inhering in social networks. While there were instances of conflict arising from neglecting reciprocity norms (especially within romantic partnerships), social networks were protected as credit structures and as safety-nets, evidenced by copious descriptions of paying debts promptly, offering help, sharing resources, and paying favors forward within social groups. In this way, debt to friends – both social and material – built trust and loyalty and had a catalyzing effect on social cohesion within the community.

Opting Out: “I Don’t Like Owing. I Like to Be Self-Sufficient.”

Despite prevalent borrowing and reciprocity within intimate networks, some participants recognized the threat debt posed to social cohesion and social capital if normative codes of behavior were not met, and opted out of network-based credit. Unlike avoiding dealer-based credit where relationships were strategically neglected to limit access to drugs, avoiding debt to friends was motivated by desire to strengthen relationships. Owen, who earlier described a culture of reciprocal generosity, described the explicit proscription against cash loans within his friendship circle: “What we don’t do is borrow money. It’s stupid to borrow money ‘cause none of us pay it back and then it just causes fights.” Additionally, intentionally avoiding debt contributed to asserting self-control (Burt 2020). “Grinding” friends for drugs or loans was highly stigmatized, and participants often linked borrowing with being incompetent or parasitic, as summarized by Lucas, a white man in his forties: “Mentally, it’s really hard because it’s humiliating. There’s not much pride in [borrowing], you know?” For these participants, friend-based loans carried unacceptable risk to self-identity, a reputation as self-sufficient, and group cohesion. Avoiding debt protected social capital within networks, illustrating how deliberative decisions contributed to social goals.

This analysis identifies buyer-focused microprocesses of social action that facilitate credit structures. Findings indicate that buyers were strategic in managing drug-related debt and reducing risk of violence through cultivating reputation, a form of symbolic capital expressing moral worth, by demonstrating trustworthiness within the dealer-buyer relationship, and engaging in generosity, reciprocity, and self-control within their personal networks. We additionally elucidated decisions by street-dealers to avoid violence, and to instead inflict reputational, social, or financial harm on untrustworthy borrowers. Finally, we argue that credit structures built on negotiation and trust act as a catalyst for social cohesion.

DISCUSSION

The association between illicit drug purchase, drug-related debt, and violence is complex. As illicit markets lack institutional mechanisms for vetting transaction partners, assessing credit risk, enforcing contractual obligations, and resolving conflict (Beckert and Wehinger 2012; Carruthers 2013), drug transactions are characterized by uncertainty. Decisions to sell or obtain drugs on credit must rely on relationships, trust, and reputation – based on information available through social networks – to mitigate risk of fraud, predation, and default. The current analysis builds on existing research that conceptualizes credit as structures of mutual trust and obligation (Fligstein and Dauter 2007; Gambetta and Przepiorka 2014; Ladegaard 2020; Robbins 2016) to explore strategies influenced by social status, structure, and distance undertaken by structurally vulnerable drug market actors. Applying a bounded rationality lens (Simon 1955) elucidates seemingly irrational behavior such as “blowing” a check on friends, tolerating extortion, or defying debt-collectors, and explains how the drug market is reproduced through dynamic and complex actions shaped by social, cultural, and economic processes. In examining debt-management strategies to dealers and to friends, we aim to clarify how informal credit and exchanges influence conditions for violence.

Findings identify three approaches to managing debt to dealers – cooperation, coercion, and assertive discontinuation – and describe how negotiation tactics from refinancing debt to extortion can expose participants to financial, social, or reputational harm in place of violence. We also discuss instances where negotiation failed and explore decisions to avoid debt to control drug use or expenditure. Additionally, in analyzing debt to friends, we identify two mechanisms that facilitated socially-contingent credit – collective negotiation and opting out – whereby participants maintained reciprocal arrangements or avoided debt to friends. This reciprocity and self-control protected social capital within the group, serving as asocial and financial safety net.

Although we primarily focus on buyer strategies, previous research on dealer behavior is foundational to understanding behavior of both buyers and dealers, especially given the fluidity of these roles within street-based markets. Our findings add empirical evidence to Jacques and colleagues’ conceptualization of dealer decisions to defraud customers, bestow gifts, extend credit, or enact retaliatory violence as existing across axes of resource exchange and social control (Jacques and Wright 2008, 2010; Jacques, Allen, and Wright 2014). We apply their typology to explain borrowing behavior as being shaped by both pragmatic economic aims and socio-structural considerations including social ties, status, and control, to buyers’ as well as dealers’ decisions. Our analysis is likewise informed by Dwyer and Moore’s (2010) typology of market-oriented exchange (sale, barter, gift, fraud) and discussion of “clientization” practices aimed at maintaining customer loyalty, showing that business decisions are based on social and cultural considerations. Building on their model, we argue that buyers similarly engaged in relational practices, such as proactively approaching dealers to refinance loans. Demonstrating trustworthiness activated dealers’ clientization practices of extending credit or refinancing debt and mitigated risk of violence when circumstances precluded prompt repayment. Lastly, our results reflect Moeller and Sandberg’s (2017) conceptualization of response to default as falling along dual continuums of cooperative/adversarial and violent/nonviolent. Similar to their results indicating strong preference for nonviolent responses that recouped resources, such as refinancing (nonviolent cooperative) and extortion (nonviolent adversarial), we found that nonviolent cooperative resolutions were preferred. However, we argue that extortion – rather than being adversarial and asocial – was often mutually agreeable as it erased both financial and moral debt, removing imperative for violence, and often preserving opportunity for future dealings.

Three central conclusions constitute this study’s contribution to extant literature. First, consistent with research showing that social distance and status of buyers impacted dealers’ decisions about how to treat their customers (Dickinson 2019; Dwyer and Moore 2010; Jacobs 1998; Jacques and Wright 2010; Moeller and Sandberg 2015), we found that reputation and relationship between dealer and customer were central determinants of dealers’ willingness to extend credit or show leniency toward unpaid debt. We identify trust-signaling – demonstrations of diligence, generosity, gratitude, and loyalty (Gambetta 2009) – as key to building trust and facilitating negotiation between dealer and buyer. As with other forms of symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1984; Lamont 2000; Sherman 2006), we argue that reputation is emblematic of moral worth that constrains or facilitates economic behavior. Buyers cultivated reputation as a form of social capital exchangeable for credit opportunities, favorable interest, access to higher quality drugs, leniency from creditors, and as a buffer to violence.

Second, we suggest that negotiation was a mechanism of legitimacy and resistance, instrumental to norms of fairness governing the drug market. In instances when dealers impulsively threatened violence or blocked attempts by reputable borrowers to refinance, borrowers would repudiate the status injury and exercise the sole leverage available by withholding payment. We link this signal of defiance to entrenched values of fairness that framed dealers who had been shorted or disrespected as justified in responding with threats, extortion, or violence.

Finally, we expand the discussion beyond the dealer-buyer dyad to explore dynamics of social capital within friendship networks. We found social capital was built through maintaining robust social ties via reciprocal generosity or exercising self-control by opting out of debt accumulation. Prioritizing relationship thereby strengthened informal credit structures that served as social and financial safety nets and countered some of the potential harm arising from criminalization of drug use and poverty.

CONCLUSION

Using a bounded rationality framework, we demonstrate how decisions of structurally vulnerable drug market actors are shaped by complex social, cultural, and economic considerations. While the main contribution of this study is to add evidence to support theories of nonviolent modes of drug market governance (Dwyer and Moore 2010; Jacques and Wright 2010; Moeller and Sandberg 2017), we link social capital with notions of self-control and self-sufficiency, adding evidence to critiques of self-control theory (Burt 2020). Buyer capacity to prioritize future consequences over immediate gratification – whether by diligently repaying loans, proactively seeking out dealers to refinance, or avoiding debt altogether – increased social capital, facilitating better treatment from dealers or social cohesion within friendship groups. We also demonstrate how seemingly irrational decisions (disproportional generosity among friends, toleration of extortion from dealers) can be understood as fulfilling obligations of reciprocity that serve future needs (such as ongoing access to credit, drugs, or income opportunities) but also as tools to build social cohesion and mitigate violence. As violence linked to drug markets (Beckert and Wehinger 2012; Browning, Dietz, and Feinberg 2004; Gambetta 2000; Goldstein 1985; Pierce et al. 2017) is amplified by structural vulnerability (Baćak and Apel 2020; Brayne 2014; Culhane 2003; Desmond 2016; Jacques and Allen 2015; Richardson et al. 2015; Richardson, Wood, and Kerr 2013; Roelfs et al. 2011; Small et al. 2013), understanding how informal exchanges influence conditions for violence is central to building successful supports around existing “cultures of intravention” involving collective risk reduction and mutual support (Friedman et al. 2004). More crucially, recognizing the actions of marginalized consumers as boundedly rational behavior shaped by complex social, cultural, and economic factors is a critical first step in adapting services to support participant agency. Given diversity of financial management practices among people who use drugs, efforts to incorporate choice into the design and implementation of research and services that aim to support their economic wellbeing could have important benefits (Jaffe, Korthuis, and Richardson 2021).

Acknowledgments

The authors primarily thank the study participants for their contribution to the research, as well as current and past researchers and staff at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use. This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [MOP 136827, 137068, FDN-154320], a Providence Health Care Research Institute and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute joint Innovation and Translational Award funded by the Providence Health Care Research Institute, and a Wall Solutions Initiative Grant from the Peter Wall Institute with Supplemental Knowledge Broker Funding from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (MSFHR). During the conduct of this research Lindsey Richardson was supported by a New Investigator Awards from CIHR [MSH 217672] and a Scholar Award from MSFHR. Allison Laing is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Simons Foundation. This research was made possible in part by the Canada Research Chairs program through a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Social Inclusion and Health Equity that supports Lindsey Richardson. Our sincere thanks to Amin Ghaziani and Emily Huddart Kennedy who provided critical feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [MOP 136827, 137068, FDN-154320, MSH 217672], Providence Health Care Research Institute, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, Peter Wall Institute, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and Simons Foundation Canada.

Notes on contributors

Allison Laing

Allison Laing, MA, is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia and research coordinator at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use. Her research centers on economic participation and financial management practices among people who use illicit drugs, and how these practices impact social connections, institutional engagement, drug use patterns, and well-being. She is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and Simons Foundation Canada.

Lindsey Richardson

Lindsey Richardson, DPhil, is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia, a Research Scientist at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, and holds the Canada Research Chair in Social Inclusion and Health Equity. Her research on the causes and health consequences of poverty among people who use drugs has been supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the BC Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. Her research has appeared in wide-ranging journals including The Lancet Public Health, Addiction, Social Science and Medicine, the International Journal of Drug Policy and the Sociology of Health and Illness.

Notes

1. Participants are pseudonymized to protect privacy.