“Not your normal drug dealing guy”: How people who sell drugs construct positive narrative identities

This study explores how persons who sell drugs construct positive narrative identities and thereby reject identities as “drug dealers” We inform our study with data collected via interviews with a group of 33 people actively involved in selling illicit drugs from St. Louis, Missouri, USA. We find that these participants create narratives wherein then frame their involvement in drug selling as a means to be “friends”, “entrepreneurs”, and “risk-managers”. We discuss implications of these findings for criminological theories of neutralizations and restrictive deterrence. We also discuss implications for understanding of why people who sell drugs may or may not respond to heightened sanctions for selling drugs such as fentanyl.