Just ‘Sorting’ Their Mates? The Identities, Roles and Motivations of Social Suppliers

It is now generally accepted that drug users are more likely to acquire their drugs from a friend or acquaintance than a commercial drug dealer. This chapter will introduce the reader to the act of ‘social supply’ through utilising data from 60 social suppliers of illicit substances such as ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and cannabis. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews, typologies of differing social supply roles will be outlined. In contrast with conventional understandings of drug dealing characterised by rational calculated action and with economic profit as the end goal, research here prioritises the subjectivities and shared meanings of social supply, suggesting that it is firmly embedded in the socio-cultural fabric of regular recreational drug use. Prolonged involvement in social supply can however provide a route into a more financially driven form of supply. Considering this and other aspects of blurring that raise practical challenges for conceptualising and sentencing social suppliers, this chapter concludes by critically analysing the extent to which social supply can be understood as an act qualitatively different from drug dealing proper.