The 2005 Scenario
Drug Market and Criminality at the Time of COVID-19
The scenario that seems most realistic would be that of a lasting slump , marked by a very gradual exit from containment and marked by the maintenance of strict border controls in an international context of a localized outbreak of the epidemic . All of this is against the backdrop of a global economic crisis that is weighing on international trade and final demand as a result of mass unemployment and wage austerity . The drug market would therefore be largely impacted with different repercussions depending on the strata of trafficking .
Wholesalers and semi-wholesalers , whether they are based in Spain or France , for example , given their accumulated financial resources and their real estate and movable assets , have the possibility of holding on financially over time . On the other hand , the situation is not the same for “ city ” retailers who are the most dependent on the state of demand . In the short term , law enforcement agencies and Europol fear a worsening of competition between the various gangs , resulting in an increase in settling of scores to appropriate resources that have become scarcer .
In the longer term , however , the situation will become even more problematic as the slump progresses , especially in terms of controlling the populations of the neighborhoods they subjugate , and especially the mass of subordinate employees , several tens of thousands on the territory , necessary for the organization of trafficking ( watchmen , nannies , vendors , etc .). 28 Since technical unemployment affects them , the traffickers ’ ability to control this population would be weakened . The legitimacy of the families , vis-à-vis the inhabitants ( or even the municipalities 29 ), who control trafficking in the cities , is in fact based on the redistribution of part of the financial manna from trafficking .
This is why , in some neighborhoods , we have seen drug dealers , duly equipped with masks , calling the population to a form of respect for confinement . In some Brazilian favelas , criminal gangs ensure the application of hygiene measures . 30 This is a means of asserting their control over the populations and sending a strong message to the state . On the other hand , in the context of degraded social control , an explosion of delinquency and criminality is to be expected against a backdrop of riots and clashes with the forces of law and order . A more serious repeat of the events of 2005 , which took place , it should be remembered , in a context of a shortage of cannabis resin linked not only to bad harvests in the Rif , but also to
28 Christian Ben Lakhdar , Le trafic de cannabis en France , estimation du gain des dealers afin d ’ apprécier le potentiel de blanchiment , OFDT , 2007 .
29 Didier Daeninckx , Municipale . Banlieue naufragée , Gallimard , 2020 .
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