Global Drugs Survey (GDS) finds users moving from dealers to internet, while extent of alcohol use remains 'very worrying'.
More drug users are buying their drugs online – including so-called legal highs as well as illegal drugs such as cannabis and MDMA – because they say the quality is better, there is more choice and it is more convenient, research has found.
The 2014 Global Drug Survey (GDS) – which questioned almost 80,000 drug users from 43 countries, and is the largest research of its kind – indicates that although the majority of drug users still use dealers, a growing number are following 21st-century shopping habits by going online.
Hidden online drug marketplaces such as Silk Road – known as the "Amazon for drugs" before it was shut down in October last year – have sprung up and drug users are using the virtual currency Bitcoin to make transactions. The UK is also at the vanguard of this shift online, with the highest percentage of people who had ever bought drugs over the internet. Almost a quarter of UK respondents to the survey – which is partnered by Mixmag and the Guardian in the UK and is likely to be answered by people who take drugs regularly – said they had bought drugs over the internet. Just under 60% knew about Silk Road, and of these, 44% had accessed the site. The most likely drug to be bought online was cannabis, followed by MDMA, LSD and ketamine. Of the 22% who had bought drugs online, 44% had first done so in 2012 or 2013, suggesting a new trend, according to Dr Adam Winstock, a consultant addictions psychiatrist in London and director of the survey.
"The fact that 44% of respondents who had bought drugs online said they'd done it for the first time recently says to me there is growing recruitment," he said. "It is currently a minority way to get drugs, but it really mimics the growth in e-commerce – we buy things online becuase it is convenient, cheap, and there is a better product range."
I would bet ninty percent of people including children learn these things exist through friends then the media. There defintely is no lone man teaching five children to buy and trade drugs via the internet in the middle of the desert. Seriously though like a news article stating that the worlds hottest STD immune prostitute who has good rates, needs to.....recruit her clients, their coming to her just like any smart person would.