Risk actants and the socio-technical evolution of illicit drug markets through time: from payphones to crypto-spatial markets and a nascent dark metaverse

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how illicit drug markets have evolved alongside information and communications technologies (ICT) in different forms of hybridisation, providing insights into their future organisation, policing and harms. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a literature-based, narrative review, which employs actor–network theory to trace the socio-technical evolution of illicit drug markets across three technological phases: pagers, mobile phones and the internet, whilst the discussion moves to a consideration of extended reality (XR). Findings The findings show that illicit drug markets are repeatedly reconfigured through the adoption of emergent ICTs. Each technological wave generates new forms of coordination while simultaneously creating new risk actants through policing and regulation. Dealers respond by displacing or containing these risks, producing shifts between open and closed and differentiated hybrid market forms. With the emergence of XR, these dynamics are argued to be giving rise to crypto-spatial markets and a nascent dark metaverse, in which immersive digital environments, encrypted ghost infrastructures and virtualised 3D marketplaces become integrated with physical drug distribution systems. Originality/value The study advances current debates on drug markets, technology and policing, offering a forward-looking framework for understanding how future forms of drug supply may be organised. Theoretically, the study extends actor–network theory by conceptualising technologies as ‘risk actants’. It introduces the concepts of “crypto-spatial markets” and the “dark metaverse” to explain particular configurations of drug market hybridity in XR.