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Students in Bristol are heading to the Dark Net for cheaper and ‘safer’ Drugs

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The ‘Dark Net’ is a lawless corner of the internet where anything from firearms to slaves and jihadi training manuals can be purchased anonymously. But for many it’s far less ominous, and simply a convenient and safe online marketplace for buying recreational drugs.

The U.K. demand for illegal substances sourced from the dark net is particularly large compared to other European countries, with recent figures showing that dark net usage in Britain has more than doubled since 2014.

Students in the South West are on trend, so to speak, with the rest of the nation. Student dealers are making handsome profits and flooding university halls with dark net narcotics. The shift to online also means that middle-men local dealers are being cut out of the picture as higher purity drugs enter from abroad and get posted directly to consumers.

“It [the dark net] is a perfectly competitive market” says Hugo*, a recent University of Bristol (UoB) graduate. “All of the drugs get reviewed. If they’re bad quality, they won’t sell. The discipline of the market ensures good quality, unlike the stuff you’d find on the street.”

Dr James Martin, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Security Studies & Criminology at Macquarie University, agrees with this assessment. “How does one [a dark net drug dealer] compete amongst so much competition?” he asked a Tedx Talk audience in Melbourne last year.

“They do so by building a brand … insurance of quality, competitive pricing. We see dealers offering free re-shipping or refunds for drugs … that are not up to the quality expected. We see dealers who assure us that their products are organic, sustainable, ethical and conflict free.”

“But why would anyone believe anything an online drug dealer would say? … Customer feedback.” He concluded, “This provides a powerful incentive for drug dealers to provide accurate information, and to conduct trades in good faith.”

It’s this mimicking of business strategies from the legitimate economy that has seen the dark net draw comparisons to e-commerce giants like Amazon. “People who receive stuff from a vendor and have home tested it post reviews of the substance” explained ex-student drug dealer and dark net user Johnathan. “To be a longstanding vendor, you have to be reliable … Local dealers will mug students off with high prices and underweight bags”.

Michael, a student at UWE, echoed this. “You don’t have to go and meet dodgy dickheads who could sell you anything.”

The understandable appeal of the dark net for student dealers seems to be creating gradually more insular drug purchasing circles in Bristol, with student users preferring to purchase better quality drugs sourced direct from the dark net by people they know.

“Most people are way more likely to go to a student dealer, if there’s one about” Jonathan adds. “They’re a peer, not part of a criminal enterprise. And there’s a level of social accountability that student dealers must adhere to that is not experienced by local dealers.” This ‘social accountability’ adds another layer of assurance and safety.

Opportunities to make profit due to preferential advantage has also driven students to cooperate as well as compete. “I know of an exclusive [student] Facebook group chat where people post menus of what they’re selling and where they drop to” Michael stated. “These are from personal social media accounts of students, and everything sold on there is almost certainly from the dark net.”

Interestingly, most of the student dealers and users I spoke to seemed to suggest that Bristol’s student market is only going to become more self-contained, with students in the city having less reason than ever to turn to local dealers.

Students can get drugs delivered from the dark net to their accommodation office, and regularly do. In my time at the UoB, I witnessed this happen on several occasions, and there’s very little the University can do about this. Campus security might be able to ward off local dealers dropping drugs to students by car, but postal delivery is impossible to track.

Meanwhile, many students have the technical nous and support to use the dark net. Hugo, for example, was introduced to it by a pharmacology student who had been using it for a while. George got his VPN (Virtual Private Network – used to hide location and IP address) set up by a computer science student in his halls.

“There’s a natural understanding of technology in student communities” says Paul North, Director of External Affairs at Volteface, an advocacy organisation which seeks to reduce the harm drugs pose to individuals and society through policy reform. “There’s a much higher chance of someone [at university] knowing how to procure bitcoin and get online”. Personal constraints such as technological ability have no effect on those with maximally diverse knowledge pools.

Paul also says the dark net is perfectly suited for students because they are a demographic of ‘party planners’ and take the pre-emptive organisation of nights out more seriously than other social groups. “Students will often plan their nights – and the dark net works really well for that. It works for students because they’re organised…other populations are more spontaneous.”

In terms of effort for the individual, sourcing a local dealer to buy drugs for an event next week is just as taxing as picking up from a local pill pusher. Add in the quality and price boost, and there’s no need to bring local dealers into the equation.

And even for the spontaneous student who still relies on local sources for speedy substance deliveries, the online remedy is on the way. Dark net deliveries are becoming quicker year on year. Michael, for example, revealed that he had ‘ordered stuff at 4.p.m. that came the next day’. In less than a decade, we’ve gone from it being practically impossible to have drugs delivered to your door via the internet, to delivery in under 24 hours. How soon will individuals be able to acquire drugs through the internet for same day delivery? No one can be sure, but it’s not unfeasible to think the operation has the capacity for further streamlining.

As well as all this, the desire of Bristol’s universities to preserve a good reputation may also be contribute to a low-risk atmosphere where student dealers and users alike feel comfortable receiving and selling drugs on campus. A University of Bristol spokesperson told the Cable, any students found in possession of illegal drugs, as a first offence in halls, are reported to the police and placed on a drugs education programme. The spokesperson said only 34 students had been referred to the police in this academic and referred to said programme for dealing or possessing drugs. That’s just over one tenth of one percent of the UoB’s student population. UWE declined to comment.

Pete Collins, Avon and Somerset Police’s Force Drug Expert, commented “If the use of drugs or dealing, by students, is taking place on campus or within blocks of student accommodation, then it’s unlikely this activity will be reported to us or seen by us.” Neither local law enforcement nor the UoB seem to have a grasp on the situation, which creates the perfect environment for these sort of operations to expand and develop.

As long as this is the case, student exploitation of the dark net will continue. The nature and structure of student communities, combined with the insurance of quality guaranteed by the brand building features of online illicit drug markets, means dodging local dealers has never been more appealing for students who want to buy and sell illegal substances. Newer, rarer and ‘safer’ drugs are on their way into universities at a rapid pace, and there’s little standing in their way.

*Names have been changed