A detailed case study was conducted of a small, but busy, middle market drug distribution network in Northern England (Coketown), derived from a larger research project. The study involved 50 prison interviews with middle and upper level drug dealers and interviews with a range of enforcement personnel. There was no agreed definition of the middle market and different people used the term in radically different ways. The results of the case study show that the middle market is not usefully characterized as a hierarchical, "mafia" type of organized crime. It conforms more closely to the small, flexible networks and partnerships of free-trading entrepreneurs. The case study does not describe a typical form of middle market multi-commodity drug distribution network, although directly similar forms of operation were identified in different parts of Britain. One important form of variant was where operations of a similar scale had "leap-frogged" across the supposedly normal hierarchy of importation-wholesale-middle market-retail, and had linked up with warehousing systems in continental Europe and were using their own transport systems to import drugs, typically from Belgium and the Netherlands. The Coketown drug brokerage networks appeared to be buying exclusively from wholesale distributors based on the British mainland that would either have imported drugs themselves or bought direct from importers and/or their agents and middlemen. One striking result was that, although the vertical structure of drug markets seemed quite simple and flat, this study found a massive amount of horizontal complexity. There were a large number of financial transactions, drug exchanges, and connected networks organized around a small number of key personnel. It is convenient to think of those that operate at this level as drug brokers -- between wholesalers and retail dealers -- as occupying a vital part of the middle market, connecting upper-level traffickers with brokers, whereas both upper-level traffickers and wholesalers and lower-level retailers will often deal in single commodities and in a smaller range of commodities. The overriding impression given by this network of drug brokerage activities is that of order, stability, and trust. 28 references