Historically the cannabis market in Copenhagen has been largely synonymous with an area known as Christiania. In 2003, police estimated that about two-thirds of the total retail-sale of cannabis in Copenhagen took place in Christiania, but other types of cannabis selling locations have coexisted; particularly so-called hash-clubs have been in public focus. The cannabis market as a whole is assumed to be highly responsive to changes in policy and law enforcement intensity. The dynamics and balance between various types of markets is assumed to influence the social costs of illicit distribution as much as total market activity, and it is a lot easier to analyse in the short run (MacCoun et al 2003: 76). To analyse these changes in market structure a model of retail market types is introduced, based on two qualitative char- acteristics. The purpose is to project the reactions of the various markets to law enforcement efforts and to describe the consequences of the changes in market structure.
Taxonomy of Market Types
Two dimensions of characteristics are assumed to influence how a particular retail-market type functions and responds to enforcement: Accessibility and community. In the model they are represented as two ends of what is in real- ity continuums. When combined they form a simple matrix of four market types represented in Copenhagen.
Accessibility
Accessibility describes how easily cannabis users can get in contact with dealers. The model presents two types of retail market types along this con- tinuum: those that are person-specific and those that are place-specific (Ha- rocopos & Hough 2005: 1). Access to person-specific markets is based on social networks and individual contacts. Uninitiated individuals will in theory be denied access. The advantage of keeping the dealing person-specific is to avoid attention from law enforcement. The disadvantage is the restrictions this has on the size of the customer base. Place-specific markets on the other hand are accessible to anyone who knows the informal social codes involved in acquiring illicit drugs. In various degrees place-specific markets are “open” to the public, but can be more or less geographically hidden and flagrant in their operations.
Community
The term community is meant to describe the circumstances surrounding the market. Do the surroundings, more or less grudgingly, accept the presence of the drug market or it is an unwelcome feature that the residents are openly hostile to (Steinberg et al 1992)? The community dimension has local markets at the one end of the continuum and public markets at the other end. Drug markets with local support are obviously a rare phenomenon due to the as- sociated problems of disorder. Where they do exist the sellers will most likely be residents of the area, which entails a degree of acceptance, stability and most importantly informal social control. Thus local markets are character- ised by fewer conflicts and relative stability, which separate them from public markets. Stability involves established territorial boundaries for dealers and a more efficient distribution due to “learning by doing” effects (Rasmussen & Benson 1994: 88). Public markets are the most common. Dealers will use public areas like parks, train stations, or schools to peddle their wares. There will be issues of public disorder, directly and indirectly. The lack of clear ter- ritorial boundaries leads to instability and promote dealer/customer mistrust and potentially conflicts between rival drug dealers.
Matrix of Market Types
The matrix is formed on the basis of these dimensions of characteristics. Below there is a description of the analytical implications for the currently dominant retail-market types in Copenhagen: Christiania and the hash-clubs.
Accessibility
Place-specific Person-specific
Local Christiania Other (*)
Community
Public Hash-clubs Street
(*) “Other” retail-market types encompass private sale, typically from apartments.
What is Christiania?
Christiania is a 34 hectares area of Copenhagen that was squatted in 1971. Cannabis dealing in Copenhagen has historically been inextricably tangled together with this so-called Free Town of Christiania. At the time it consisted of abandoned army barracks, today it houses somewhere around 900 inhab- itants and is the second biggest tourist attraction in Denmark. A Supreme Court ruling of 1976 called for the immediate eviction of the squatters, but the ruling newer came to fruition as the Danish parliament passed a special law that allowed the area to exist as a “social experiment” (Krarup 1977: 3). In 1980 Nils Christie described Christiania as an “alternative to Denmark”, almost a “caricature”, populated by two types of people, the middleclass activists and the poor, together “the lumpenproletariat” (Christie 1980). The issue of drug use and selling in the area has been a recurring theme for Christiania as well as surrounding Copenhagen and it’s one million citizens. In Christie’s (1980) article the main theme was the so-called “junk blockade” which signalled the end of hard drugs in the area and Christiania’s official acceptance of the cannabis market. The rest of Danish society hasn’t been as unanimous in its acceptance of cannabis dealing and the consequences of formulating such a sharp soft-drugs/hard-drugs distinction. In fact the public’s attitude towards Christiania’s autonomy in these matters has historically been divided along political lines (Jæger et al 1993) where the left wing supports
the social experimentation and what it entails and the right wing parties call for more police control. The Law of Christiania3 from 1989 addressed this dividing issue, the recurring problem of flagrant cannabis dealing on Pusher Street in Christiania. To the proponents of the law Pusher Street stood in the way of the ambition of “normalisation”, which refers to adherence to building codes and instatement of regular police patrolling. Anyone inter- ested in Orwellian terminology will appreciate that this is a difficult process to combine with social experimentation.
Unfortunately for the social experimentation the cannabis market was drawing quite a bit of negative attention from police and politicians. In the early nineties Pusher Street’s turnover was estimated4 at 40 million euros annually (Jæger et al 1993: 84). This made Christiania: “The constant cause of anxiety in Nordic cannabis policy” (Jepsen 1995: 4). Christiania’s alleged role as a distribution point between continental Europe and the Scandinavian markets has been a constant source of outspoken resentment from our Nordic neighbours (Storgaard 1996). By 1992 the Copenhagen Police had become so frustrated with Pusher Street that they took it upon themselves to implement a crackdown. This crackdown never received any financing or political back up, and in 1994 a new minister of justice Erling Olsen instructed police to be more reserved towards small-time dealers in Christiania. This instruction made po- lice feel betrayed by their boss and they responded by withdrawing from Chris- tiania altogether (Jepsen 1995: 4). The cannabis market resumed at full capac- ity the moment the police left the area (Memorandum on Christiania, R 12) which prompted an evaluation of the crackdown in the magazine Danish Police as: “the biggest waste of resources in recent years” (Andersen 2005: 15)5. Essentially this conflict between the minister of justice and the police exemplify the dilemmas of the traditional Danish cannabis policy. How is the Christiania market to be interpreted in relation to the State Attorney Circu- lars of 1969-’71? Was the cannabis market in Christiania to be perceived as consisting of a series of small time dealers or an organised unit? An Attorney General’s reminder circular of 19946 described the situation in accordance with the minister of justice, as: “enforcement in minor drug cases”, whereas the police consistently describe the Christiania market as: “organized crime controlled by criminal groupings … involving threats, extortion and violence etc.” (Københavns Politis Virksomhedsberetning 2005: 77)