Busing drugs on the dark web is common seen as one safer alternative to navigate an unpredictable, garbled local supply. But is this view consistently correct? To put it to the test, a team of researchers analyzed the composition of over 60,000 drug samples – some purchased from the dark web, others purchased in person.

Their studyrecently published in the journal Abusediscovered a complicated relationship between the quality of drugs and their source. While the dark web offered safer access to some topics, others seemed more reliable when purchased offline.

Co-author Dr. Monica Barratt, senior research fellow at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, said this potential mismatch between expectations and reality is what motivated the team to undertake research.

“Many of the harms that come from using drugs arise from prohibition. And these kinds of marketplaces can end up with a potentially safer supply,” she says Filterr. “But without data, is it really true?”

The researchers focused on the five most common drugs submitted for testing: MDMA, cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine and LSD.

To find out, Barratt and her collaborators partnered with two of the world’s largest drug enforcement agencies: Energy controlan international NGO headquartered in Spain, and System for information and monitoring of narcotics (DIMS), a general conscription on behalf of the Ministry of Health in the Netherlands. Both agencies shared test results for all samples submitted to their labs from 2016 to 2021, inclusive FTIR, mass spectrometry and several other analytical techniques.

The researchers focused on the five most common drugs submitted for testing – MDMA, cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine and LSD – to ensure there would be enough data points to provide reliable results in any case. They only included samples purchased in person or on the dark web crypto marketsexcluding samples that participants only indicated were from the “internet”. A total of 62,596 drug samples met these criteria.

Using lab data about each sample’s composition, the research team investigated whether drugs from the dark web were more likely to contain the advertised substance and less likely to contain impurities, compared to those purchased offline. They also compared the average strength of drugs from each source.

Their conclusions were mixed.

When purchased on the dark web, drugs such as MDMA (in both powder and pill form), cocaine and LSD were significantly more likely to contain the advertised substance. This is consistent with the idea that while buyers may often leave reviews on dark web marketplaces, seller there may be more responsible than their personal counterparts.

For amphetamine and methamphetamine, however, there was no difference between dark web and offline samples.

Similarly, some crypto market drugs – MDMA powder and cocaine – were much less likely to contain adulterants. But others – amphetamines and LSD – turned out to be more more likely to be counterfeit than samples acquired in person.

Finally, while MDMA powder, cocaine, and meth purchased on the dark web tended to have higher purity, dark MDMA pills and amphetamines had lower purity on average.

“I can imagine that if we conducted the same study in the United States or in Australia, it would be completely different.”

To wrap their heads around these contradictory results, the authors developed substance-specific explanations for how “the dynamics of the crypto market” may influence drug composition. For example, the abundant personal supply of MDMA in the Netherlands may drive the differences between the crypto market and offline sources.

More generally, the researchers emphasize that the results would differ depending on the local supplies being tested, so their findings must not be seen as universal.

“One of the caveats of the study is that the comparison group is the Netherlands, which is where most of the MDMA in the world comes from,” Barratt explained. “I would imagine if we conducted the same study in the US or in Australia, it would be completely different … the (offline) comparison group would be more adulterated.”

In Barratt’s eyes, these far-from-simple results underscore the importance of expanding drug control services. When you can’t necessarily count on crypto markets to offer a safer supply, local drug control becomes even more important.

Barratt also emphasized that, as drug testing continues to be legalized, new service providers should prioritize asking people more specific questions about the source of their submitted samples.

“It’s a sensitive question to ask,” she admitted, “but I doubt many of these services are asking the question the right way.”

Asking “the right way,” according to Barratt, should provide enough information about the source of the substance to understand what kind of risk it poses to society if it turns out to be counterfeit. This includes asking participants who say their drugs come from “the internet” to provide more detail, if they feel comfortable doing so.

Barratt envisions a future where harm reduction strategies are tailored to the source of the drug.

“If we find something particularly nasty and it turns out you got them from, you know, a foreign dark web, that’s kind of important for us to know,” she explained. “It’s different if you got it from a local dealer, because then the local supply is here, and we probably have to issue a warning.”

Barratt envisions a future where harm reduction strategies are tailored to the source of the drug. If a drug control service knows where a substance comes from, they can decide whether it is more appropriate to share any alarming results locally or online.

“I feel like there’s a gap there, especially for peers and people who maybe straddle both worlds,” Barratt noted. “They can be harm reduction workers who also understand the dark web, who can then get some funding to actually go in and do digital outreach.”

A single study cannot definitively prove whether the dark web offers a safer offering. But these findings suggest that while some substances were indeed less likely to be counterfeited, there is no one strategy to reduce harm when buying silver bullets – and that testing remains crucial regardless of the source. By paying close attention to where counterfeit substances were purchased, local drug enforcement services can help participants make more informed decisions to protect their health.

Photo by Wellness GM via Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0