Silk Road closure fails to dampen illegal drug sales online, experts say

Updated

The online illegal drug business is booming, researchers say, with several new websites popping up despite the closure of the infamous website Silk Road last year.

Silk Road was known for selling everything illegal from drugs and guns to hired killings.

It was finally shut down in October after years of investigation by the FBI, who arrested the website's administrator and confiscated his small fortune of bitcoins.

At the time it was lauded as a huge success for law enforcement.

But the effect was only temporary. Despite the high-profile arrests, illegal drug sellers and buyers were able to find plenty of alternative market places within a month of Silk Road's demise.

Sellers use online black markets to trade their goods worldwide, accepting payment via digital currencies like bitcoin and then using postal services to deliver the drugs.

The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre's (NDARC) Joe Van Buskirk is the lead author of a study looking into the operation and use of black markets online.

He says soon after the closure of Silk Road another 10 sites sprang up.

What is the Silk Road?

Website launched in February 2011, became known as 'eBay for drugs'

Complex masking and encryption software made it difficult to track users

Users traded in Bitcoin - an online currency that hides purchasers' identities

Vendors would use regular mail to post drugs to buyers

Drugs like heroin, cocaine and synthetic substances reportedly for sale

Founder Ross William Ulbricht reportedly operated site from San Francisco

Ulbricht arrested and site shut down in October 2013

Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison in May 2015

"We started monitoring alternate websites as soon as the Silk Road was shut down," he said.

"We noticed initially there weren't that many users operating on there.

"But following the closure there was definitely a big migration from users on the Silk Road onto alternate market places."

In February last year two prominent drug retailers left the online market, but in the following six months the number of Australians selling drugs online doubled.

Mr Van Buskirk says the number of sellers in Australia has again doubled since then.

"In the wake of the departure of those two retailers, there was a bit of a gap in the market that it seemed that people were coming in to fill," he said.

"From that we did notice an influx in Australian retailers operating on there."

To find the illegal drugs online, buyers have to navigate through the deep web using software, such as Tor, which makes them anonymous.

Mr Van Buskirk says the complicated process limits the amount of people who will buy and sell online.

"It does involve a bit of technological know-how to get on the websites and even more know-how to know how to make a purchase when you're on there," he said.

The research found a preference-switch away from synthetic stimulants and back to more traditional drugs such as cannabis.

"A year ago the new psychoactive or synthetic drugs were quite prominent," he said.

"They tended to drop in availability and things like pharmaceutical drugs and MDMA and cannabis overtook them."

Legal drug sales online also worrying authorities

And it is not only the illegal drugs that are causing concern.

NDARC director of drug trends Dr Lucy Burns says the growing online market for legal drugs is of particular concern.

She says the type of drugs being sold online is changing from psychoactive substances - which mimic the effect of illegal drugs - to prescribed opioids, such as oxycodone and morphine or over-the-counter medications containing codeine.

"Pharmaceutical opioids are our really major drug of concern," she said.

"Whereas these new psychoactive substances have taken a bit of a downturn in our internet market."

Drug sellers obtain drugs through 'doctor-shopping'

Many of the drug sellers would be obtaining the medicine through the pharmacy system, lying to several doctors in a process known as doctor-shopping.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia's communications director, Greg Turnbull, says pharmacists are working on systems to prevent this.

"What's being developed right now is a system so that a pharmacist can tell immediately through their dispensary software whether that person has previously submitted a prescription for that same drug so that an alarm bell effectively goes off," he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Van Buskirk says researchers are debating whether online markets are a good or bad thing for drug takers.

"Some researchers have put forth the argument that this actually leads to a harm minimisation approach to [the] purchasing of drugs," he said.

"People can have direct feedback if the substance isn't good or has impurities or adulterants or things like that.

"While that may be the case it also leads to increased drug taking in greater frequencies, greater amounts and of a greater amount of drugs.

"So it's a bit of a doubled-edged sword."

The Australian Federal Police declined to be interviewed on the issue.

However, a spokeswoman says the AFP is aware of the growing online drugs market and its officers regularly visit sites covertly to try to track down sellers.

Topics: drugs-and-substance-abuse, drug-offences, drug-use, crime, chemicals-and-pharmaceuticals, internet-culture, academic-research, law-crime-and-justice, australia

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