Definitions and scene setting

Over the past several years the evolution of UK drug markets has gathered national attention from the government, media and public. The recent Review of Drugs by Dame Carol Black (Black, 2020) tells us the illicit drugs market in the UK is worth £9.4 billion a year. This has centred upon the emerging development and expansion of drug distribution and supply networks from urban centres to provincial towns – in a process known as ‘running county lines’.

While drug supply to small towns and cities is now new, the supply mechanisms and markets have altered significantly over recent years, such that it has impacted greatly not only upon the host towns, but also upon the young people involved – both as victims and offenders.

The shifts in drug distribution and supply networks from urban centres to provincial towns (from here on referred to as county lines (CLs)), have been facilitated by advances in technology, that is, mobile phones. Technological advance has profoundly altered transactional practice for ordering, supplying and distributing illegal drugs. This is achieved by establishing a database of active drug users (customers), loading this database onto a mobile phone as a customer database or network (a deal line), then undertaking regular distribution to this established network using a series of adaptive business models. Supply normally involves heroin and crack cocaine Black (2020). Hay and colleagues (2019) estimate there were 313,971 users of opiates and/or crack cocaine aged 15–64 in England in 2016/17. The National Drug Treatment Monitoring systems (NDTMS) estimated 279,793 were in contact with structured treatment in 2016/17. Over half (52 per cent) presented for problematic use of opiates. Of these, 43 per cent also presented for the use of crack cocaine. In the UK, an opiate user has an average age of 39, with three quarters of opiate users aged over 35. See Black (2020) for the most recent analysis of market trends.

Coupled with the development and expansion of drug distribution and supply networks has been the evolution of the urban street gang (USG) as prime movers in this profitable business. In many ways it is the convergence of evolved drug markets with evolved street gangs and technological change (including social media) which has recently altered the landscape of criminal activity in the UK.