The Dark Web Supermarket: Another Prohibition Failure

Would you believe it if I told you that anyone can buy cannabis and hashish on the dark web, completely anonymously and safely, and that it is so easy that even a 14-year-old could do it?

This is what we demonstrated in the tenth episode of the anti-prohibitionist podcast “Stupefatti” , entitled “The Dark Side” , and is the fruit of our research on new technologies applied to illegal drug trafficking.

The dark web is a portion of the internet that is not indexed by common search engines, so it is not possible to access it from Google. Inside it there are hundreds of specialized sites that sell and deliver all sorts of illegal substances all over the world.

What many people are unaware of is how easy and safe it is to access and make purchases.

To do this, you need to equip yourself with a program to camouflage and hide your internet browsing called VPN. It is a subscription service that anyone can subscribe to for a few dozen euros a year. You also need to use a free software called TOR, which allows you to communicate with the internet in a completely anonymous way. It is important to point out that neither TOR nor VPNs are illegal tools, they are rather invaluable resources that serve to protect the freedom and privacy of millions of people around the world and are commonly used, for example, by dissidents and journalists to defend themselves from political repression and censorship in countries subjugated by authoritarian regimes. Using these technologies, anyone can therefore navigate without running the risk of being spied on or controlled.

At this point all that remains to be done is to find a seller's site. On the Internet, hundreds of lists, always updated, of dark web addresses divided into real product categories are easily found.

What is striking about these illegal online shops is the ease of use and the immediacy of the user interface: they are completely comparable to eBay or Amazon.

There is the possibility of filtering searches by type of substance, by price category, by reliability of the seller or by country of origin of the goods. With a small surcharge you can even have a fast delivery service.

Payments on the dark web are made through Bitcoin, digital coins that allow you to remunerate anywhere in the world while guaranteeing an excellent level of anonymity because they escape the control of traditional finance. They can be purchased and exchanged easily (and legally) online in special forums and sites.

The ordered substance is delivered vacuum-packed and inside a special hermetic anti-odor package. The packages are anonymous and shielded by special plastic films that are impenetrable to customs scanners and that deceive any border inspection technology.

Do all these precautions make buyers completely safe?

The data in our possession allow us to answer this question affirmatively, especially for purchases of small quantities.

Thanks to the technologies just described, in fact, the only possibility for law enforcement to intercept the incriminating package is random checks, a methodology that however allows for the inspection of only an infinitesimal percentage of postal shipments.

Furthermore, according to Italian law, if illicit substances are intercepted at customs, the recipient of the package can be charged only if it is possible to prove that there was an agreement with the sender/seller. This evidence is obtained by investigating the existence of an online agreement or by tracing payments for the goods, but thanks to the dark web and paying in Bitcoin the possibility of having left traces is close to zero. It is statistically more likely to be searched if you buy in the drug dealing area near your home.

Let it be clear that the goal of this investigation is not to encourage those who read or listen to the podcast to commit online crimes, but to demonstrate a simple and inescapable truth: prohibition has failed because prohibition is impossible. If this was true thirty years ago, at the beginning of the so-called "war on drugs", it is even more true today with the new technologies available to crime. The only politically sensible approach is to legalize and regulate.