The illicit drug trade in the United Kingdom

The Home Office commissioned Matrix Knowledge Group to undertake research into the structure of the illicit drug market in the UK. The research combined sociological, economic, and business techniques and interviewed over 200 dealers and traffickers in prison for more than seven years in the largest study of its kind ever undertaken.

Following the publication of this report Matrix has produced a short, and highly accessible, Practitioner Guide which outlines the key findings from this report.

There has been a large amount of publicity from this report including several newspaper articles:

• The Sunday Times magazine article by Richard Girling - The battle to break Britain’s Mr Bigs.
• The Guardian article by Alan Travis: From foreign fields to UK streets - the anatomy of an £8bn industry. You can also access the diagrams used in this article here: How drugs gangs work and Drugs prices and mark-ups.
• The Guardian ‘Comment is Free’ article by Danny Kushlick: A drug on the market.
• The Times article by Richard Ford: How drug gangs are taking a leaf out of legitimate business manual.
• Daily Mail article: ‘High salaries and little risk’ for UK’s £8billion drug barons.
• Daily Express article by Tom Whitehead: Evil drug barons net billions with 16,000% mark-up.
• The Telegraph article by John Steele: Police chiefs u-turn on cannabis classification.