Research paper
Characterising dark net marketplace purchasers in a sample of regular psychostimulant users

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.01.010Get rights and content

Abstract

Background

The past five years has seen a proliferation in marketplaces operating on the ‘dark net’ selling licit and illicit substances. While monitoring systems have investigated the specific substances for sale on these marketplaces, less is known about consumer motivations for accessing these marketplaces and factors associated with their use.

Methods

An Australian national sample (n = 800) recruited on the basis of regular psychostimulant use was recruited and asked about purchasing substances from dark net marketplaces and the reasons for doing so. Respondents who had purchased any drug from a dark net marketplace in the preceding year were compared to those who had not in terms of demographic information and factors including drug use, criminal activity, and sexual and mental health.

Results

Nine percent (n = 68) of the sample had purchased from dark net markets in the past year. MDMA, LSD and cannabis were the three most commonly purchased substances, and the main benefits cited for purchasing online were the better quality and lower cost of drugs available. Controlling for other factors, participants who purchased from dark net marketplaces in the past year tended to be younger, more likely to be involved in recent property crime and to have used more classes of drugs in the preceding six months, specifically psychedelics and ‘new psychoactive drugs’.

Conclusions

Though a small minority of participants reported having purchased drugs online in the preceding six months, these appeared to be a more ‘entrenched’ group of consumers, with more diverse substance use and rates of criminal activity. For consumers in the current sample reporting recent dark net usage, country borders are now less of a significant barrier to purchase and there is a wider range of substances available than ever before.

Introduction

The rise of the internet as an integral part of daily life has led to an increase in its use for the discussion, distribution, and purchase of illicit substances (Walsh, 2011). Online purchasing of illicit substances initially appeared driven by a rise in the interest and availability of new psychoactive substances (NPS); substances that often produce similar neurological effects to traditional illicit drugs but are not yet controlled by international legislation (Walsh, 2011). However, with the advent of the ‘dark net’ (also known as the ‘hidden web’ or ‘deep’ web) retail of more traditional illicit substances has risen steadily (Van Buskirk, Roxburgh, Bruno, & Burns, 2014a). Dark net marketplaces exist on the Tor network, which works by rerouting a user's connection through multiple anonymous servers, thereby masking the original internet protocol (IP) address of the user (Christin, 2013). Unlike the ‘surface web’, the dark net consists of websites not accessible via search engines, and the exact address must be known in order to gain access. The anonymity this provides, along with the use of decentralised cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (2015) for payment, theoretically allows for the retail and purchasing of illicit substances with less fear of prosecution by law enforcement (Barratt, 2012). The most notable marketplace to date has been the Silk Road, which rose to popularity in 2011 and served to greatly expand the availability of substances online. Following the seizure of the Silk Road by law enforcement in November 2013, several other dark net marketplaces have emerged in its wake (including Silk Road 2.0), which was also subsequently shut down by law enforcement in November 2014 (Rushe, 2014), with varying popularity and longevity (Van Buskirk et al., 2014b, Van Buskirk et al., 2014).

There has been increasing interest among researchers in monitoring activity on these dark net marketplaces (Buxton and Bingham, 2015, Orsolini et al., 2015). The Drugs and New Technologies (DNeT) project run at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) in Sydney, Australia, has been recording activity on various marketplaces for the past five years in a standardised manner, allowing for the analysis of trends. Specifically, DNeT has monitored the availability of substances, the number of active retailers and the reaction of marketplaces to law enforcement operations and internal scams (Dolliver, 2015, Van Buskirk et al., 2015, Van Buskirk et al., 2014). This research provides important information on trends in substance availability from dark net marketplaces, the number of retailers, and how marketplaces adjust following disruption. It does not, however, provide information on the characteristics of consumers purchasing from these marketplaces. A recent paper published by Barratt, Ferris, and Winstock (2014) analysed data from a large, international sample of 9470 recent drug users who completed an on-line survey promoted through the media in 2012 (before the closure of the Silk Road) and found approximately 6% of their sample had purchased drugs from the Silk Road, with rates of purchasing highest among participants from the USA (10%) and lowest among Australian participants (4%). However, this low percentage of Australians is apparently at odds with the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) documents released in the wake of the Silk Road closure, in which it was determined that Australian customers were overrepresented on the original Silk Road relative to Australia's population (Ormsby, 2015). The most commonly purchased illicit substance across USA, UK and Australian participants was MDMA, followed by cannabis and LSD. Among those participants consuming drugs purchased on the Silk Road (without necessarily having made the purchase themselves), the main motivations for using the website were the greater range, and higher quality of drugs available, as well as the convenience of online purchasing (Barratt et al., 2014). However, this analysis did not compare those purchasing from the Silk Road with those purchasing from other sources, and so it is difficult to typify this population, and whether they differ from those purchasing solely from street markets.

The Ecstasy and related Drugs Reporting System (EDRS) has been monitoring patterns of substance use and associated characteristics of regular psychostimulant users (RPU) in Australia since 2003. In this sample, participants are eligible if over the preceding six months they have used on at least six different occasions one of the following psychostimulant substances: 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), 3,4-methylenedioxy-amphetamine (MDA), methamphetamine, cocaine and any non-prescribed use of pharmaceutical stimulants (e.g. methylphenidate, dextroamphetamine). Over the past two years, the EDRS has reported an increasing proportion of participants sourcing NPS and traditional illicit substances online. In 2012, 3.6% of those sampled reported sourcing any drug online in their last transaction, with 5.7% of the sample having purchased online in their last transaction in 2013 Sindicich and Burns, 2013, Sindicich and Burns, 2014. However, data were not collected in these years on the specific online source from which substances were purchased, and so the extent to which online purchasers used dark net marketplaces as opposed to ‘surface web’ retailers remains unknown. In addition, no data were collected on the specific motivations of this sample for purchasing online over traditional street markets.

The aims of the paper are therefore two-fold. First, to quantify differences between individuals who purchase from dark net marketplaces compared to those who do not according to self-reported demographic criteria, patterns of past and present drug use, and their health and legal status as reported in the EDRS. Second, to describe the motivation of users for accessing dark net marketplaces as reported in the EDRS, therefore extending the findings of Barratt et al. (2014).

Section snippets

Participants

The sample incorporated 745 participants recruited as part of the 2014 EDRS. This study is designed to monitor self-reported changes in illicit drug market use and preference across Australia (for full methodology see Sindicich and Burns, 2015). Participants were recruited for face-to-face interviews during March–July 2014 using a purposive sampling process, via advertisements in universities and street press, and peer referral. Participant eligibility included an age of 16 or older, use of a

Results

Of the 745 EDRS participants, 82 reported that they had ever purchased from the dark net (12% of the sample), with 66 (80% of all dark net users; 10% of the sample, 95% CI: 7–11%) reporting having done so in the previous year. Motivations and characteristics of purchasing from dark net marketplaces among recent purchasers are presented in Table 1 The majority of recent dark net purchasers reported they had purchased from the original Silk Road, with the majority reporting they had bought from

Discussion

This is the first paper to document the specific nature of internet drug purchasing among a group of Australians who use psychostimulants regularly. Though a small proportion of the sample reported ever (11%) and recently (10%) purchasing substances on the dark net, proportions are slightly higher than those from the 2015 Global Drug Survey sample (6.9% of Australians in the sample reported purchasing from the dark net in the preceding 12 months; Winstock, 2015). Purchasing occurred for a

Conclusions

The advent of online drug marketplaces and the exponential growth in the types of substances available seems to have revolutionised the way some people purchase illicit substances. For those Australians purchasing drugs on the dark net, country borders do not seem to be a significant barrier to purchase, as illustrated by the large proportion purchasing from international retailers, with a wider range of substances available than ever before. The current study represents the first analysis of

Conflict of interest statement

The authors wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest.

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