A crackdown on drug dealers is also a crackdown on drug users
FiveThirtyEight: Lee Hoffer, associate professor of anthropology and professor of psychiatry, spoke about his research on illegal drug markets and how middlemen “brokers” blur the lines between dealers and users. “These are people that are essentially helping their peers. They don’t consider themselves dealers and no one else would, except the police,” Hoffer said. “Then it gets complicated. Who is the dealer, and how do you distinguish this person from other people?”