Comment by nikcub

I grew up in a suburb in Australia that bordered a bad area where crime and drug dealing were rife, and I went to school with a lot of people from that area.

The network seemed to always have one product or another that was used as an informal currency. For years it was the Energizer brand AA battery, then it became prepaid cell phone minutes after one provider allowed users to send credit to each other (this was shutdown).

At one period it was Gillette Mach 3 razors, but then stores started putting them behind the counter so it didn't last long. Cigarettes were always a quasi-currency, I remember the value going from 20c to 50c, and cigarettes being exchanged for everything (and some smaller stores selling or buying them individually).

After I left the school I heard that the market had reverted back to batteries (there was always a battery market, I don't think I ever purchased batteries from a store), after a very brief period where the most shoplifted items in the local supermarket were cuts of meat and meat trays[0].

What these items all have in common is that they can be shoplifted from large supermarkets easily, are portable, easy to store, have a long shelf life (well, not the meat) and are essential household purchases even in poor neighborhoods.

I find interesting that even if you aren't involved directly in the drug trading, you are taking part in the surrounding economy by purchasing or exchanging these goods. I never bought drugs but my friends and I were always buying and trading these goods. I assumed that they would always end up back with the drug dealers somehow, who would find a way to convert them back to cash.

[0] Apparently this is an issue again in Australia - "GROCERY prices are rising because organised crime gangs are stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of meat" - http://www.news.com.au/national/organised-gangs-targets-meat...

Edit: an interesting related article from Forbes that came up in my Google search - "Why do people steal meat from grocery stores?", goes into the economics and details of shoplifting and is US-centric: http://www.forbes.com/sites/larissafaw/2012/12/24/why-do-peo...