Jackie has to use a maintenance inhaler twice per day, every single day, and will continue to use it for the rest of her life. Even with that maintenance inhaler, she sometimes still needs to use a different rescue inhaler to make it through the night when her asthma symptoms can be more pronounced. Without using these two types of medicine every day she could have an asthma attack, be hospitalized, or die.

My wife Jackie has severe asthma. Thanks to the ridiculous state of health care in the United States, I was recently forced to commit a crime in order to get her the medicine she needs to live.

These markets have gained a pretty nasty reputation because of the items they sell. Ross Ulbricht, the man who ran the Silk Road dark net market, just received a sentence of more than two lifetimes in prison ; before his sentencing, family members of people who died from overdosing on drugs bought on Silk Road wrote letters to the judge asking for justice .

I've always found the dark net markets to be fascinating and I spend more time than I should browsing the markets and the communities that have been built around them. Because of this fascination, I knew that there were vendors who offered prescription drugs that don't get you high. Drugs such as antibiotics, allergy pills, and most importantly, asthma inhalers.

The dark net is a part of the internet that isn't indexed in search engines and can't be reached by using a normal browser. Some of the most popular sites on the dark net are basically online black markets, where a range of (mostly illicit) goods can be purchased with the digital currency Bitcoin and shipped right to your door.

Several months ago, Jackie found that her maintenance inhaler was running low. We had just obtained health insurance through Kentucky's health care exchange and, while it wasn't the most expensive plan, it certainly wasn't cheap. Our monthly bill was high, but we thought the coverage was worth it.

Many common medicines that people need (such as those prescribed for ADHD, anxiety, depression and many, many other things) are made very affordable, according to an insurer's drug tier list . Asthma inhalers, however, are not.

Given that a person with severe asthma could literally die without these inhalers, you would expect insurance companies to price them low enough for anyone to afford. It would be pretty unethical, or at the very least irresponsible, to charge a premium for them. Right?

"When you buy in a real pharmacy with an official prescription, the chance of adulteration or scam is null. This risk is increased in deep web," Dr. Fernando Caudevilla, also known as DoctorX, who assisted with medical questions about drug use on the Silk Road forums , said in an email.

Not as much testing has been done on prescription drugs for sale on the dark web, but the limited findings suggest they are equally trustworthy—although not as trustworthy as drugs sold in a regulation pharmacy.

There has been extensive testing on the illegal drugs for sale on the dark web, which were found to be overwhelmingly pure and true to advertisement. This was repeatedly confirmed on the Silk Road by vigilante reviewers calling themselves the LSD Avengers, who bought drugs on the site and tested them in a lab . "At least 56 samples of [ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, LSD, and others] have been laboratory-tested, and, of these, 54 have shown high purity levels of the drug the item was advertised to be on Silk Road," an FBI special agent wrote in an affidavit .

However, I would argue that the dark net markets are a mostly positive force for making drug use safer, and providing an affordable way for people like me to obtain needed medicine. While most of the drug commerce on the dark web is for recreational use, there is a healthy business in medicine for its intended purpose. You can buy a whole range of prescription medicine for things like depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, and even restless leg syndrome at a fraction of the usual cost.

The truth is, you can't really be 100 percent positive you aren't being scammed, but most vendors aren't out to get you. A little research goes a long way toward avoiding both fake products and losing money to scams. The markets have built-in review systems where buyers can rate vendors and describe the product and service they received. A vendor's rating and number of sales on the market will give you an immediate idea of how reputable they are. Beyond reviews on the market, there are also several dark net market communities (such as the darknet markets subreddit and DeepDotWeb ) where buyers discuss vendors and warn about scams. These sites as well as the market's own forums are great resources for researching a vendor.

Naturally, I was somewhat skeptical. I wasn't surprised by the low price, since I knew inhalers could be purchased in other countries very cheaply—Jackie had bought a rescue inhaler from a pharmacy in Milan for 4 euro during our honeymoon last year. But how could I be sure that the vendor was selling real medicine?

It hadn't occurred to me to look for an inhaler on the dark net until Jackie suggested it. She doesn't really know much about the markets beyond things I've told her, but she asked me one night if you could buy inhalers on them. I got online, opened the Tor browser that is the gateway to the darknet, and pretty soon I found exactly the same maintenance inhaler—same brand, completely identical—that we needed to replace. The price was $30 with shipping.

"In general, generic commercial brands from labs from Eastern Europe, India or Brasil that are served in blisters have very low rates of falsification," he wrote. "Powders without identification, bulk pills in a sachet, new articles without feedbacks or reviews… are more suspicious of [being] fake. We have not analyzed too many prescription drugs (around 20 samples in a year) and 90% are right."

Dr. Caudevilla also works at an NGO that tests street drugs and monitors drug use at music festivals for safety. He said it's not ideal to buy prescription drugs on the dark web, but that some users have no choice.

After doing my research, it was clear that the vendor I planned to purchase from had an excellent reputation. I decided to message him on the market to ask about the inhaler. He greeted me in a friendly and professional manner and assured me that he could get a maintenance inhaler with the dosage that Jackie needed. I was convinced to go forward with the plan at this point.

Let's not forget that this type of transaction is illegal: I was buying a prescription drug without a prescription and having it shipped across state lines, not to mention not paying taxes on it. But I felt that my hand had been forced. It wasn't a choice for me. Jackie's health is the most important thing, and I didn't particularly care what I had to do to keep her healthy. Besides, I didn't think the DEA would waste the time and resources to bust a guy buying an asthma inhaler. With my mind made up, I went through the fairly complicated process of actually buying something on one of these markets.

I had done my research and knew how to safely and anonymously complete the order. Despite those preparations, I was still feeling a bit anxious so I took every precaution. I went through a site called LocalBitcoins to purchase Bitcoin face-to-face with cash from a surprisingly nice and normal guy. Using cash allowed me to avoid purchasing the Bitcoin online with a credit card and tying my identity to the transaction. He transferred the Bitcoin to a wallet that I had set up in advance, which had no connection to my real identity. In order to further protect my anonymity, I decided to use the Tails operating system because it is a privacy-focused OS that can fit on (and be booted from) a flash drive. Tails doesn't access your computer's hard drive or store any information from your session permanently. After booting up Tails on my laptop, I used a public Wi-Fi network and the Tor browser bundle to anonymously access the Bitcoin wallet and transfer the digital currency to the market. My anxiety had melted away by this point and was replaced by excitement about the process I was going through.

The only difference was the price, and the fact that a crime had to be committed to get it

I was feeling like the nerdiest badass ever by the time the Bitcoin arrived in my market account. I was finally ready to order, and it couldn't have been simpler. I navigated to the inhaler listing and simply chose the quantity and shipping method from drop down boxes then clicked the "Buy" button. It took me to a page where I had to provide my shipping information. I used PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) to encrypt my name and address so only the vendor would be able to decrypt the message. That was it. Order complete. The vendor had everything he needed and my bitcoin was in escrow (to be released once I received the package). The vendor shipped it the next day and just like that we had saved a ton of money.