IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/122169.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Drugs and development: exploring nuances based on the accounts of Nigerian retail dealers

Author

Listed:
  • Nelson, Ediomo-Ubong Ekpo

Abstract

The production, distribution, and consumption of drugs has long been seen as a threat to social and economic development. On the other hand, conditions of unemployment and poverty foster expansion of illegal drug markets. In this study, I offer a nuanced view of the drugs/development connection where poverty and unemployment incentivise participation in the illegal drug market as a response to the failure of state-led development. The study is based on 31 in-depth interviews with male retail drug dealers in Nigeria. Findings revealed various ways the participants framed retail drug trade in connection to development. This includes, drug dealing as a pathway to social and economic mobility, drug dealing as way of mitigating youth crime, drug dealing as a response to failed development promises, and drug dealing as a means of capital formation for legitimate investment. The complex relationship between drugs and development revealed in these accounts troubles the narrow emphasis on counter-narcotics that dominate Nigerian drug policies. They indicate a need to view illegal drug trade, especially low-level distribution, as grassroots dissent from exclusionary development. Social policies designed to provide skills and opportunities for legitimate, gainful employment for at-risk youths offer scope for curbing involvement in retail drug trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Nelson, Ediomo-Ubong Ekpo, 2024. "Drugs and development: exploring nuances based on the accounts of Nigerian retail dealers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 122169, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:122169
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/122169/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. God’stime Osariyekemwen Igiebor, 2019. "Political Corruption in Nigeria: Implications for Economic Development in the Fourth Republic," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 35(4), pages 493-513, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anna Bussu & Domenica Giovanna Dettori & Maria Gabriela Ladu & Manuela Pulina, 2024. "Illegal drugs and socio-economic changes in a new pivotal region: a court judgements perspective," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ryoko Sato, 2022. "Catastrophic health expenditure and its determinants among Nigerian households," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 459-470, December.
    2. Ushuki A. Amuyou & Yi Wang & Francis Bisong & Alexander S. Antonarakis, 2021. "Livelihood Impacts of Forest Carbon Protection in the Context of Redd+ in Cross River State, Southeast Nigeria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-18, April.
    3. Ezekiel Allen & Elsie Asamoah, 2024. "The Interplay of Military Structures and Coups in French-Speaking West African Countries: A Focus on the Presidential Guard," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(1), pages 2027-2037, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    drugs; development; drug policy; Nigeria; retail drug market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:122169. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.