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19 February 2014: Assessing the Breaking Bad factor

The drugs trade around methamphetamine – made famous by the American TV hit show Breaking Bad – is the focus of a major inquiry in Australia where Professor Dick Hobbs was recently asked to give evidence.

Professor Hobbs, from the Department of Sociology, was asked to give evidence via Skype to the “Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the use and Supply of Methamphetamines, in particular Ice” due to his award-winning book Lush Life (Oxford, 2013).

Based upon interviews and ethnographic material gathered over a 20-year period, Lush Life is about how organised crime is an activity no longer limited to the underworld, especially of the drugs trade where almost anyone can be involved.

As part of the inquiry, Professor Hobbs was questioned for 45 minutes on drugs and organised crime in the UK, specifically about methamphetamine and its current status within the UK drug market, but also about how organised crime has evolved in the UK, and the adaptability of criminal entrepreneurs to new opportunities. He also talked about drug cultures and differing prices as methamphetamine is currently very expensive in the UK and is regarded as a drug associated with affluence, whereas in Australia and the USA it is a drug associated with poverty.