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Background: A growing body of literature aims to improve understanding of the operations of drug trafficking markets through conducting interviews with dealers and traffickers. Insight into how these individuals conduct business can provide evidence to inform the efforts by policy makers, law enforcement and practitioners to disrupt illicit markets. This paper aims to make a contribution to this evidence base by extending the number of European countries in which interviews have been conducted with incarcerated drug dealers and traffickers.Methods: It draws on interviews with 135 men convicted of offences related to the distribution or sale of heroin or cocaine and imprisoned in Italy, Slovenia and Germany. The research was conducted as part of the Reframing Addictions Project (ALICE-RAP) funded by the European Commission. The sample was diverse. It included a range of nationalities and some individuals who were members of organised crime groups. The majority of the interviewees were dealers who sold at the retail and street level, but there were some who were importers and wholesalers.Findings: Most dealers in each of the three countries reported having more than one regular supplier, and were able to respond to periods of over and under supply without losing customers. Supply arrangements varied in terms of frequency and quantities bought. Dealers engaged in repeated transactions and their relationships with customers were based on trust and reputation. Dealers aimed to sell to regular customers and to provide drugs of good quality. While dealers sought to maximise their profits by cutting drugs with cutting agents, the quality of drugs that they sold could affect their reputation and thus their profits and position in the market. Lastly, while there are some significant differences in the approach between those involved in organised crime groups and those who are not, and between street dealers and those operating at higher levels of the market, there were striking similarities in terms of the day-to-day operational concerns and modes of relationship management.Conclusions: Interviewees' arrangements for securing supplies of drugs provide support to the notion that drug markets are resilient and flexible. Our findings correspond with other empirical research in relation to the centrality of trust in the practical operation of supply and sale of drugs. The research highlights some differences, but important similarities between dealers who were part of organised crime groups and those who were not; dealers all faced some common challenges and adopted some common responses to these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Neighborhood characteristics are important determinants of individual health and well-being. For example, characteristics such as noise and pollution affect health directly, while other characteristics affect health and well-being by either providing resources (e.g. social capital in the neighborhood), which individuals can use to cope with health problems, or limiting the use thereof (e.g. crime). This also suggests that there might be age differentials in the impact of these characteristics, since individuals at different stages of life might need different resources. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on age differentials in associations between well-being, health, and neighborhood characteristics.Objective: This paper studies associations between a wide range of neighborhood characteristics with the health and well-being of residents of the greater Berlin area. In particular, we focus on differences in the effects between younger (aged 20-35) and older (aged 60+) residents.Methods: We used data from the Berlin Aging Study II (312 younger and 993 older residents of the Berlin metropolitan area in Germany). We used survey data on health and well-being, combined these with subjective perceptions of the neighborhood, and geo-referenced indicators on the neighborhood, e.g. amenities (public transport, physicians, and hospitals).Results: The results show that access to public transportation is associated with better outcomes on all measures of health and well-being, and social support is associated with higher life satisfaction and better mental health. There are considerable differences between both age groups: while the associations between access to public transport and health and well-being are similar for both age groups, neighborhood social capital shows stronger associations for older residents. However, the difference is not always statistically significant.Conclusion: Having access to services is associated with better health and well-being regardless of age. Local policy makers should focus on lowering barriers to mobility in order to improve the health and well-being of the population. Since the social capital of a neighborhood is associated with better health and well-being among older residents, investments that increase social capital (e.g. community centers) might be warranted in neighborhoods with higher shares of older residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]