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Atte Oksanen 1 , Bryan L. Drugs are sold on both dark web services and on social media, but research investigating these drug purchases online is still emerging. The aim of this study is to analyze risk factors associated with buying drugs online. Utilizing theories of criminology and addiction research, it was hypothesized that social bonds, low levels of self-control, and poor mental health are associated with buying drugs online. Additionally, it was predicted that purchases of drugs online would mediate the relationship between low self-control and regular drug use. Measures of impulsivity, a sense of mastery, social belonging, psychological distress, excessive behaviors drinking, gambling and internet use were utilized to predict purchasing drugs online. Two percent of the U. Results from multinomial logistic regression, penalized maximum-likelihood logistic regression, and binary mediation regression models indicated that buying drugs online was associated with lower self-control, higher psychological distress, and excessive gambling behavior and excessive Internet use. Having online friends was not a risk factor, but having strong social bonds with offline friends served as a protective factor. Additionally, buying drugs online mediated the relationship between low self-control and regular use of drugs. Results indicate that more focus should be placed on mainstream social media services as sources of drug acquisition as online drug buyers have multiple self-control and mental health problems. Este estudio tiene como objetivo examinar los factores de riesgo vinculados a la compra de drogas online. Cite this article as: Oksanen, A. Illegal drug use and trade are persistent public health and safety issues with serious consequences for individuals and societies. The strategies and contexts for the purchase of drugs evolved greatly in the past decade. Nowadays, the Internet offers easy access to legal and illegal activities taking place on open social media services and encrypted services that use, for example, the Tor network. Online drug dealing first caught public attention with the rise of the Silk Road, an online cryptomarket, which operated in Tor, in Barratt et al. Although the Internet is now a popular context for drug trade, research on this topic is still in its very early stages. It is crucial to discover if buying drugs online is prevalent and to describe risk and protective factors that can potentially be addressed to prevent this emerging problem behavior. Studies have shown that users of cryptomarkets are most commonly males in their 20s. Users of cryptomarkets prioritize them over street markets for quality reasons and personal safety Barratt et al. Cryptomarket buyers have been considered a technological drug subculture that practices online activism and libertarian ideology Maddox et al. Despite much of the focus on cryptomarkets, some indications show that people might use mainstream social media sites, such as Instagram, to buy drugs Marsh, Recently, a Nordic project used qualitative interviews and a digital ethnographic approach to analyze the phenomenon in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Currently, the literature lacks studies using national datasets and our study aims to fill this gap by investigating buying drugs online from a cross-national perspective. Investigating this phenomenon is important due to the potential of online drug markets for easier access to drugs, which can amplify the various risks that substance use has for young people. Moreover, risk and protective factors for buying drugs online still need to be discovered. We argue that a combination of theories from criminology and addiction research could help researchers to understand the psychological and social risk factors related to buying drugs online. These perspectives include self-control, social bonds, and mental health. Thus, we expect that easy access to social media sources for acquiring drugs could lead to more opportunities to engage in daily use of drugs in individuals with low self-control. Furthermore, we expect that buying drugs online would mediate the relationship between low self-control and regular drug use. Learning takes place in different environments, including friendships of differing quality, frequency, and intensity. Perceived closeness or belonging to friends can have an influence on deviant behaviors. This is particularly the case on the Internet, where it is very easy to get access to harmful and deviant content and form social contacts with like-minded peers Keipi et al. However, strong ties with offline friends have been shown to buffer risky online behavior Kaakinen, Keipi, et al. Mental health refers to psychological, emotional, and social stability and wellbeing of individuals. Addiction research widely recognizes that mental health problems coexist and develop with excessive drug use Orford, One example of these problems is psychological distress i. Issues with mental health are also manifested in other types of addictive behaviors, which could further influence drug use. Drug use has high comorbidity with excessive alcohol consumption Grant et al. All these excessive behaviors are relatively prevalent among young people. In this study, we focused on factors related to buying drugs online, an understudied and emerging problem behavior among young people. Our first aim was to evaluate the prevalence of social media drug acquisition in a population of the United States and Spanish young people. These countries were selected due to their high percentage of drug use among young people ESPAD, ; Savolainen, These countries are otherwise comparable in the usage of Internet among young people Savolainen et al, and provide a good starting point for comparative research on buying drugs online. Our second aim was to investigate how drug acquisition online is associated with self-control, social bonds, and issues with mental health. We predicted that strong social bonds online, low self-control, and mental health issues such as psychological distress and excessive behavior, including excessive drinking, gambling and internet use, would be associated with drug use and buying drugs online. We also expected strong bonds offline to function as a protective factor against drug use and buying drugs online. The participants of the study were year-olds from the U. We recruited the U. Using such panels has become commonplace in social sciences and they are considered a good alternative due to the difficulty of recruiting participants by traditional means. The limitation of such datasets is that they are mostly restricted to people using the Internet Lehdonvirta et al. However, research panels have the benefit of getting access to hard-to-reach populations such as emerging adults in many countries. In our case, the data were collected using similar procedure via Dynata in both countries to guarantee the comparability of data samples. Comparisons of the country datasets to the U. Both samples were part of a larger international comparative project on young people and addictions. A survey designed in English and translated into Spanish included validated measures that have been widely used in comparative research. Additional items were translated by proficient English and Spanish speakers. The accuracy and comparability of items was guaranteed by the back-translation process in December The surveys were pre-tested with university students and mechanical Turk respondents. The surveys were conducted with LimeSurvey software that was run on the Tampere University server. Survey format and layout was identical for all respondents and optimized for both computers and mobile devices. Median response time for the survey was minutes in the U. Participation was anonymous, voluntary, and participants were informed about their right to withdraw from the survey at any time. The participants were informed about the project web page including all the necessary information in case the participants had any concerns regarding the study. The participants gave consent to make data open access and available for research purposes. All the participants that finalized the survey were included in the study and there were no missing data on the items used in the study. Drug use. We then asked to specify the types of drugs used and the frequency of the use. Drug types included 1 cannabis, 2 synthetic cannabinoids, LSD, magic mushrooms, or other comparable hallucinogens, 3 amphetamines, ecstasy, cocaine or other stimulants, 4 opiates, 6 pharmaceutical opioids, 7 gamma, GBL, and other similar drugs, and 8 other pharmaceuticals. The user types were then categorized into regular cannabis users and regular users of other drugs e. Drug purchases online. Next, respondents were asked to identify different online resources for purchasing drugs, including darknet marketplaces and various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, online dating services, and general discussion forums. Self-control was measured with two different scales. Response options were in 4-point Likert scale giving scores from 1 to 4 per each item. Response options were EIS were no 0 and yes 1 in all questions. However, omega for impulsivity in Spain was only. All regression models are adjusted for age, gender, social media activity and country. Social bonds. We used belonging to friends online and offline as measures of social bonds. We asked respondents three questions about how strongly they felt they belonged to friendship groups, groups of school or work friends, or online communities. The scale was from 1 not at all to 10 very strongly. Question on belonging to online communities was used as a single item for online friends. These questions have been previously validated in studies on deviant online behavior Minkkinen et al. Additionally, we used the nine-item Identity Bubble Reinforcement scale IBRS-9 to measure perceived similarity and identification with other social media users Kaakinen, Sirola, et al. Mental health. We measured psychological distress with the item General Health Questionnaire GHQ , which has been widely used in general population studies Goldberg et al. All of these scales had good inter-item reliability see Table 1. Control factors. We used gender, age, and social media activity as controls. We measured social media activity with a set of 12 questions involving how often respondents used the most popular social media sites. Analyses for this study were run with Stata A multinomial regression analysis was carried out to examine the associations among the covariates, drug use, and buying drugs online. We used an aggregated U. The group of people who had not used drugs was set as the reference category for those who had used drugs but not bought them online and for those who had also bought them online. Table 3 reports additional analyses that were run including only the participants who had experimented with drugs U. These analyses were conducted by using penalized maximum likelihood logistic regression i. Using the Firth method provides more robust findings in cases when either sample size or events are low. Despite this, we aimed to keep the estimation strategy as robust as possible and utilized the Firth method. The analyses were run with the Firthlogit-command Coveney, and age, gender, and social media activity were used as controls. We also report chi-square tests for categorical variables and mean comparison based on Kruskal-Wallis test. OR s are based on penalized maximum likelihood logistic regression models. All regression models are adjusted for age, gender and social media activity. Mediation analysis Figures 1 and 2 was conducted with binary mediation command with a replication bootstrap. We used aggregated US-Spain data here due to the low number of people buying drugs online. Impulsivity and sense of mastery were independent variables, buying drugs online was the mediating variable, and regular drug use was the dependent variable. Mediation analysis included age and gender as controls. Of the respondents, about every fifth Cannabis was clearly the drug most experimented with by respondents with fewer respondents reporting use of other types of drugs. Out of the United States young people, 7. In Spain the numbers were slightly lower with respective figures of 6. In the U. Additionally, respondents were given the opportunity to indicate several services where they purchased drugs online. About half of all the respondents in both the U. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that those buying drugs online reported more self-control issues a lower sense of mastery and higher impulsivity compared with non-users as well as those who had used drugs but not bought them online Table 2. Buying drugs online was associated with psychological distress and excessive forms of drinking, gambling, and Internet use. Additional analyses were conducted in order to check the robustness of the results. Table 3 shows the descriptive statistics comparing those who have bought drugs online and those who have only experimented with drugs. These results further confirm the findings shown in Table 2 , comparing only the participants who experimented with drugs with the participants who reported buying drugs online. Self-control factors were only statistically significant in the U. In Spain, belonging to online friends was associated with buying drugs online. All mental health factors remained significant in the descriptive findings Kruskal-Wallis test and in penalized maximum likelihood logistic regression models. The last part of the analysis investigated buying drugs online as a mediator between the relationship of low self-control and regular drug use see Figures 1 and 2. Statistically significant mediation was found. Figure 1 presents the coefficients when treating impulsivity as an independent variable. The indirect effect was statistically significant p Figure 2 presents the coefficients when treating sense of mastery as an independent variable. The indirect effect was statistically significant p This study analyzed the behavior of buying drugs online among young people in the U. Still, on average every tenth person who had experience using drugs had bought them online. Thus, a low percentage of users purchasing drugs online could represent a more developed drug trade, especially given that current research on online buying indicates that a large share is intended for reselling Demant et al. The most remarkable finding is that mainstream social media services, such as Facebook and Instagram, were used for buying drugs in both countries. The results underline that research on online drugs sales should not only focus on darknet services. From a broader perspective, the results are in line with current social media and cybercrime research underlining that mainstream public Internet platforms give easy access to varying types of illicit and harmful content Keipi et al. In addition to drugs, communities and contents that promote other forms of harmful or addictive behaviors, such as problem gambling, disordered eating, or self-harm, are easily accessible and among the most visited social media sites by youth Keipi et al. In our study, both impulsivity and a low sense of mastery were associated with both drug use and buying drugs online, especially in the U. This result highlights that researchers should continue investigating impulsivity in an online setting. This could partially explain why our results were stronger in the U. Also, results indicated that online drug purchases mediated the relationship between low self-control and regular drug use. These results are an important contribution to the literature, as previous studies described online buyers as technologically savvy users who can regulate themselves Barratt et al. In contrast to these studies, our results indicate that existing self-control problems can lead to spontaneous drug purchases that may later on worsen the potential problems with regular use of drugs. Social norms and group processes within online social networks could be important in many ways. However, in our study we did not find results related to the potential influence of friend groups online. The only exception was the result from Spain indicating that those who bought drugs online expressed higher belonging to online friends. Due to this difference from the U. For example, scholarship on online cliques and bubbles has shown that they vary culturally and topically Keipi et al. We found, however, evidence that strong offline social ties were a protective factor against both drug use and buying drugs online. This finding is in line with previous studies showing that positive offline social ties can buffer potential risks encountered online Kaakinen, Keipi, et al. These findings are also consistent with social control aspects noted in criminology LaFree et al. Those buying drugs online had multiple mental health problems, as they reported psychological distress as well as excessive forms of gambling and Internet use. These findings confirmed previous research results on the associations of drug use in general Edlund et al. Therefore, it would be misleading to portray users of online drug markets as only a technologically savvy and a self-controlled sub-culture. Our results indicate that these youth may have many mental health issues and comorbidity of different addictions. Our analysis was cross-sectional and limited to two countries. Future studies should continue investigating this phenomenon in other countries as well. Although our models included risk and protective factors, and a mediation analysis, on a strong theoretical basis, causal relations need to be confirmed in future longitudinal studies. Additionally, stronger measures of impulsivity should be explored. The strength of the study was that it used two nationwide samples, but additional studies in other cultures and contexts are needed. This is one of the first studies focused on buying drugs online, an emerging problem behavior that might be especially harmful given that it is very difficult to control online behaviors. Online drug buyers have multiple self-control and mental health problems, and drug availability online might worsen their situations. Impulsive decisions are especially easy to make on social media. In light of this, more focus should be placed on youth behavior on mainstream social media services. Implications for policy and practice underline the need to work with youth on their social media use, since young people spend a considerable amount of time online. Social media platforms are linked to a wide variety of deviant behavior Nasaescu et al. The wide availability of illicit drugs is a larger problem area that needs to be tackled through legal enforcement efforts, especially online. Most importantly, the results suggest that there is a need to provide therapeutic interventions and support for those youth buying drugs online. As strong offline social ties could help protect from drug-related risks and harms, it is necessary to promote face-to-face interactions among young people. Comprehensive school-based interventions against substance use should include components related to buying drugs online, increasing its protective factors and decreasing risks. 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Youth workers warn of rise in drugs purchases through social media. Martin, J. Drugs on the dark net: How cryptomarkets are transforming the global trade in illicit drugs. Palgrave Macmillan. Polydrug use trajectories and differences in impulsivity among adolescents. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology, 18 3 , Meerkerk, G. Minkkinen, J. Moyle, L. International Journal of Drug Policy, 63 , Munksgaard, R. Mixing politics and crime — The prevalence and decline of political discourse on the cryptomarket. Nasaescu, E. Longitudinal patterns of antisocial behaviors in early adolescence: A latent class and latent transition analysis. Oksanen, A. Harm Reduction Journal, 15 Proanorexia communities on social media. Pediatrics, 1 , e Glamorizing rampage online: School shooting fan communities on YouTube. Technology in Society, 39 , Pearlin, L. The structure of coping. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19 1 , Peters, E. 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Peer group identification as determinant of youth behavior and the role of perceived social support in problem gambling. Journal of Gambling Studies, 35 1 , Schieman, S. Religiosity, socioeconomic status, and the sense of mastery. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66 3 , Slatcher, R. A social psychological perspective on the links between close relationships and health. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 26 1 , Van Hout, M. International Journal of Drug Policy, 24 6 , Vazsonyi, A. Its time: A meta-analysis on the self-control-deviance link. Journal of Criminal Justice, 48 , Your request has been saved. The data we compile is analysed to improve the website and to offer more personalized services. By continuing to browse, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. For more information, see our cookies policy. January Pages 29 - Abstract Drugs are sold on both dark web services and on social media, but research investigating these drug purchases online is still emerging. Introduction Illegal drug use and trade are persistent public health and safety issues with serious consequences for individuals and societies. Mental Health Mental health refers to psychological, emotional, and social stability and wellbeing of individuals. This Study In this study, we focused on factors related to buying drugs online, an understudied and emerging problem behavior among young people. Method Participants The participants of the study were year-olds from the U. Table 1 Descriptive Statistics. Conflict of Interest The authors of this article declare no conflict of interest. References Akers, R. Orford, J. Excessive appetites: A psychological view of addictions. Introduction Method Results Discussion. Go top. PlumX Metrics. Your request has been saved Notify me when a new issue is online I have read and accept the information about Privacy. For more information, see our cookies policy Aceptar. Table 1 Descriptive Statistics Note. Procedure Both samples were part of a larger international comparative project on young people and addictions. Instruments Drug use. Data Analysis Analyses for this study were run with Stata Results Of the respondents, about every fifth The indirect effect was statistically significant p Discussion This study analyzed the behavior of buying drugs online among young people in the U.

Online and offline determinants of drug trafficking across countries via cryptomarkets

Buy cocaine online in Vars

Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVIDrelated research that is available on the COVID resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. In the months following the onset of the COVID pandemic, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA; observed an increased use of cryptomarkets, which led them to question whether cryptomarkets constituted a more convenient channel via which to distribute illicit drugs without any in-person contact. However, as more countries' borders closed, the likelihood is that cryptomarkets have been negatively impacted. We aim to measure and understand the success rate of transactions on cryptomarkets during the ongoing COVID pandemic, through recourse to self-reported data that documents the outcome of cryptomarket transactions. To collect self-reported data on cryptomarket transactions, we launched a platform where participants can enter information about their prior activities on cryptomarkets. The sample consists of valid self-reports that were received between January 1st, and August 21st, The number of unsuccessful transactions increased concurrently with the global spread of the pandemic. Both the international and inter-continental nature of the transactions and the severity of the crisis in the vendor's country are significantly associated with delivery failure. Drug cryptomarkets may have been disrupted due to the pandemic. The results lead to two opposing explanations for unsuccessful transactions. One explanation for the lower success rate is the inability of drug dealers to deliver on past promises that were made in good faith, while the second points towards opportunistic and abusive behaviour by drug dealers. Cryptomarkets, which are a subset of illicit drug trafficking channels on the darkweb, are platforms that operate in many cases under an almost identical model to eBay Barratt, Their administrators offer a venue where independent drug dealers and users can transact with one another, in exchange for a commission on each sale. New business models are available to buyers and sellers where sellers can offer same-day delivery for example, or even direct dealing Childs et al. In an underground economy in which any single market can have hundreds of thousands of participants Justice Department, , cryptomarkets represent an alternative to traditional physical illicit drug markets in terms of sourcing and distributing illicit drugs. We still do not understand which factors play a role in the successful delivery of illicit drugs sold on cryptomarkets. Past research has had to rely on the publically available activity feeds that cryptomarket customers share online. Only one study Stinenbosch, managed to gain access to the backend server of a cryptomarket, and its master list of transactions, though the author unfortunately did not provide a full estimate or predictive model for the success of transactions. Despite the relative dearth of research, prior studies do suggest that the success rate of transactions is bound to be impacted by the level of collaboration and opportunism within cryptomarkets Munksgaard, For example, although cryptomarkets have put in place escrow payments to prevent internal fraud, customers can still lie to administrators about not receiving their drugs, in order to demand a refund. Vendors can also act opportunistically by requiring their customers to forgo the escrow service and pay them directly. This enables vendors to claim to have shipped the illicit drugs when, in fact, they have not. What we do know is that cryptomarkets are highly embedded in the physical world, both with respect to sourcing illicit drugs and their subsequent delivery. Paquet-Clouston et al. Consequently, the same constraints that apply to illicit drug markets, such as the availability of products, for example, must also apply to cryptomarkets. Deliveries of illicit drug packages are also very much embedded in the physical world, insofar as cryptomarket vendors must mail their illicit drugs to their customers, which means that they encounter the same delays and issues that plague all mail packages Volery, Given that prior research has found that cryptomarket participants are predominantly located in Western industrialized countries Van Buskirk et al. The COVID pandemic has impacted many aspects of our social lives, not to mention having unprecedented consequences for the global economy Barua, The pandemic has had very different impacts on social groups, and less fortunate groups have had to bear much of the impact of the pandemic. This includes vulnerable populations of drug abusers for example. Still, prior research suggests that recessions ordinarily do not engender a drop in demand for illicit drugs, as drug users are highly stable customers Caulkins, Dunlap et al. Their study of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina shows a rise in drug prices to adjust for the fact that the catastrophe had inevitably led to a shortage of drugs. In the months that followed the onset of the COVID pandemic, the EMCDDA observed an increased use of cryptomarkets, which led them to question whether cryptomarkets represented a more convenient channel through which to distribute illicit drugs, due to the fact that no in-person contact was required. Hence, if a government closes a country's borders, then cryptomarkets are very well likely to be impacted. Therefore, international drug trafficking may have, in fact, become even more difficult, if not actually impossible even, following various bans on international travel and trade. The impact of COVID on illicit drug markets is highly dependent on the geographic location of the vendor and the buyer, for the simple reason that all countries were not affected in the same way by the pandemic UNODC, Conversely, domestic sales of illicit drugs on cryptomarkets may have been less impacted than international sales. The type of illicit drug that is being transacted may also play a role in terms of how COVID has impacted on cryptomarkets. As aforementioned, given that many cryptomarket participants reside in Western industrialized countries, the changes imposed by the pandemic might have impacted upon major actors in drug markets and undermined their competitive advantage. Barratt and Aldridge provide an insightful analysis of the potential impact of the COVID pandemic on drug cryptomarkets. Specifically, the authors identify potential business opportunities for cryptomarket dealers, alongside highlighting the prevailing uncertainty and confusion in this sector. One reason for the lack of clarity over the impact of the COVID pandemic is the sheer dearth of empirical data on cryptomarket participants. The work presented above suffered from a similar limitation, with very little reporting being based on data collected directly from cryptomarket participants. One of the benefits of cryptomarkets is their ability to generate real-time information on the state of cryptomarkets. Due to their open nature, researchers have the ability to reach out to their participants and survey them about both their opinions and activities. For this research, we build on previous research by focusing on one significant factor, namely the success rate of transactions on cryptomarkets. More precisely, our aim is to measure and understand the success rate of transactions on cryptomarkets during the COVID pandemic. We do so through recourse to self-reported data that documents the outcomes of cryptomarket transactions. To be clear, we do not claim that our data allows us to precisely predict how cryptomarket participants adapt during crises such as a pandemic; rather, it helps us to understand both how illicit markets cope with external stresses, and whether these can impact upon illicit markets that are harder to capture than simply looking at the number of participants, volume of sales, or the price of illicit drugs. In order to collect self-reported data on cryptomarket transactions, we launched the DrugRoutes. DrugRoutes is an online platform that crowdsources cryptomarket participants for information about their prior transactions on cryptomarkets. Visitors to the website are invited to anonymously provide information about a purchase or sale they have made on cryptomarkets. They are asked to provide the specific type of illicit drug they bought, the quantity, the amount of money they paid, the date of the transaction, the country of origin and destination of the illicit drug, and whether or not the illicit drugs were actually received. In an effort to encourage the darkweb community to participate in this survey each time they engage in a trade, the results are shared publicly on the website along with a map detailing the success rates of each country. The community is therefore able to see the safest — and riskiest - routes for drug transactions. Each entry to the website is moderated by the research team, both to ensure the quality of the data and to eliminate any potential spam. Entries are classified as spam — and not analyzed in this paper, or presented on the website - if the transaction price varies too significantly from the advertised price for the same drug, shipped from the same country. DrugRoutes is not the only online platform collecting drug-related data.. Statistics Canada, for example, launched StatsCannabis to crowdsource the price of cannabis in Canada following its legalization 2. This is another example of a website being used in lieu of more traditional research methods, and yet yielding significant results. The consent form and all the contact information are available on the website. Consent from the participant is assumed upon the submission of an answer. The information gathered is strictly confidential, as no identifying information is collected and is impossible to associate submissions to specific users. No sociodemographic information is of course collected. It is possible for a participant to submit more than one entry, though the research team monitors rapid successive submissions to eliminate possible spams. The survey platform was advertised by the research team on approximately Darkweb platform by public messages posted on forums and by messages sent privately to individual users. The sample in this study comprises valid submissions received between January 1 st , to August 21 st , , which, on average, is equivalent to three submissions every day. A further submissions were deemed to be invalid during that time frame. In order to analyse the sample, Chi-2 analyses were conducted to investigate the association of different variables with the success or failure of the transaction. Then, a logistic regression analysis was performed. The logistic regression aims to estimate the probabilities of an event occurring based on a series of covariates, in this case, the failure of a cryptomarket transaction as explained by the average daily COVID mortality rate for the buyer's country, the vendor's country and an interaction effect buyer x vendor , the value of the transaction in USD, whether the transaction is international, whether the transaction is inter-continental, the origin of the buyer, the origin of the vendor and the drug type. Each government reacted differently to the pandemic and adopted different measures, at different times, to combat the pandemic. Measuring the intensity of the pandemic in multiple countries across time is a signficant challenge. Indeed, the high number of coronavirus deaths poses challenges to the healthcare system, economic development, supply chain, education, and travel pattern of the people Evans, One method to model the impact of the pandemic is through the mortality rate due to COVID in each country see for example Chowdhury et al. A substantial number of studies published in high quality peer-reviewed journals have used mortality rate to account for the severity of the pandemic in their publication see for example Ammar et al. Ammar et al. As we want to test the impact of Covid and the related social distancing measures on cryptomarkets, we consider mortality rate as the best measure of the impact of the pandemic. Future research should, however, continue to investigate the relationship between the impact of the pandemic at the national level to provide more evidence of the reliability of mortality rates. We use the Johns Hopkins data to account for the mortality rate for each day as the researchers of this institution and from around the world rely on this data for its COVID Testing Insights Initiative in supporting the public and policymakers to understand and make decisions about the pandemic related matters. The categorical variables are presented in Table 1 in relation to the status of the transaction success or failure , while the continuous variables are presented in Table 2. Bivariate analyses of independent categorical variables for both successful and unsuccessful transactions. The dependent variable that is observed in this study is the failure rate of transactions. Both cases were coded as 0. There is a total of 69 different countries represented in the list of buyers. In order to streamline the analysis, we considered only the top five countries. There is a total of 59 different countries represented in the list of vendors. Specifically, the success rate of transactions has more to do with continentality than it does the international nature of a transaction. The pandemic did not impact upon different countries at the same time and with the same level of intensity. To account for geographical-based differences in impact, we took into account the severity of the loss of human life in each vendor and buyer country, at the time of the transaction. The data on each country was provided by the Johns Hopkins , for each week of the period under examination. The relation between the mortality ratio of the vendor country and that of the buyer was also calculated in order to understand if their combined impact was significant. Finally, g iven the abnormal distribution of the transaction prices, we subsequently calculated the l og10 of transaction worth USD. The trend is positive, thus suggesting that as the pandemic spread across the globe, so did the issues associated with delivering illicit drugs through cryptomarkets. The red vertical line indicates the point at which most Western countries imposed their first national lockdowns. One can discern a sharp increase in delivery issues just after the introduction of such measures, albeit many of the fluctuations appear not to be correlated with that specific event. To be able to observe which factors are associated with the failure of cryptomarket transactions, we proceeded to conduct a logistic regression analysis to explain the failure of transactions. The results of the logistic regression are in Table 3. Our model controls for the severity of the crisis in the countries involved in the transaction, the price of the illicit drugs, the international and inter-continental nature of the transactions, the origin of the participants, as well as the type of illicit drugs sold. The results suggest that the failure rate of transactions is not dependent on the type of drugs, the country of origin of the participants, or the price of the transaction. However, the international nature of the transactions is significant. There are greater risks in shipping drugs internationally, even if it is to other countries on the same continent. Finally, the variable that is of most interest for this research is the severity of the crisis, which was measured by the number of COVID related mortalities within the involved countries at the time of the transaction. The results show that the average daily mortality rate in the vendor's country is associated with the failure of the transaction, while the severity of the pandemic in the buyer's country does not seem to impact upon the delivery status. The main aim of this paper was to measure and understand the success rate of transactions on drug cryptomarkets during a pandemic. Our results suggest that the intensity of the pandemic in each country, as determined by the number of mortalities at the time of a transaction, as well as the international and inter-continental nature of the transaction may play a role in the success rate of cryptomarket transactions. Although this study is unable to determine the causes of this impact, it does lead to two opposing hypotheses pertaining to whether the apparent increase in unsuccessful transactions is due to either the inability of drug dealers to deliver on past promises that were made in good faith, or the opportunistic and abusive behaviour of drug dealers who are taking advantage of the pandemic to steal from their customers. Previous research suggests that the former, rather than the latter, is the likely source of the problem. Indeed, given that cryptomarkets are highly connected to physical markets Paquet-Clouston et al. Indeed, borders were harder to cross, and mail packages were delayed in favor of the delivery of essential goods. Hence, vendors may have simply been unable to fulfill their orders, which, in turn, leads to a higher failure rate. Moreover, the pandemic has also had a disruptive impact on the physical illicit drug market, causing both shortages of illicit drugs and an increase in the prices of some drugs EMCDDA-Europol, In light of social distancing measures, the supply chain and logistics of drug trafficking underwent profound disruption, particularly at the distribution level EMCDDA, Should this hypothesis turn out to be true, then we would expect the success rate of transactions to return to normal once the pandemic has subsided. The alternative hypothesis is that COVID engendered a change in the behaviour of cryptomarkets participants. Europol noted that the prevailing instability created a volatile environment for criminal activities across the supply chain EMCDDA-Europol, Because of that, the level of violence increased among certain actors in the chain, thus leading to abnormal and potentially opportunistic behaviour. Actors in the online market may also have been affected by these changes. For example, vendors may have engaged in fake sales on cryptomarkets to compensate for their lost revenues from other sources. In difficult times, vendors may be more willing to compromise the reputation they have built up over the previous months in order to secure payments from buyers. This is somewhat supported by the data, which points toward the fact that the level of unsuccessful transactions are higher among vendors residing in countries that are most affected by the pandemic. Based on Morselli et al. Indeed, cryptomarket participants are more likely to negotiate, perhaps threaten but most likely to ostracize opportunistic partners that steal from them. Our results also show that some variables are not associated with the success or failure of transactions, which is in contrast to what previous research has found. The results suggest that the failure rate of transactions is not correlated with the type of drugs sold. The price of transactions — and by proxy the size of the package — also does not appear to impact upon the failure rate of transactions. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that, in fact, large purchases are being shipped in multiple smaller packages to ensure their successful delivery. The report from the EMCDDA and Europol also states that they observed an increase in the number of sales of smaller quantities and a decrease in the sales of larger quantities during the pandemic, which we did not capture in our sample. Unfortunately, this study is limited first by the small size of its sample. This sample is not representative of all cryptomarket transactions, and given the lack of sociodemographic data, prevents us from posing hypotheses as to whether and how our sample may be biaised. Our sample is also self-selected, albeit the broad advertisement of the survey means that all market participants, no matter their origin or particular type of illicit trade, were invited to participate in the survey. Given that the results of the survey represent only a small fraction of the activities of cryptomarkets during the current pandemic, the impact of the variables presented in our model might be different from their normal state. Therefore, future research should continue to examine the relationship between transaction success and types of drugs, origin of the participants, the international nature of transactions, and the value of transactions. Another significant limit of this paper is the use of the John Hopkins mortality rate Johns Hopkins, This mortality rate is based on national definitions of what a COVID related death is, and disparities in testing and definitions could under- and overestimate the COVID mortality rate in any country Corrao et al. Since both outcomes are possible, it is not possible unfortunately to state whether the use of the Johns Hopkins data is more likely to create spurious relationships, or make it harder to detect significant relationships in our model. Still, past research in high-impact factor journals Ahmad et al. While cryptomarkets have grown in recent years, their future is entirely dependent on a high success rate in order to increase their pool of participants. In this respect, our results suggest that cryptomarkets may not represent the perfect alternative to sourcing drugs from physical markets during periods of external stresses. Future research should model how other types of stresses e. In addition to this, future research should also model how short- and long-term criminal trajectories are modified by illicit drug vendors in times of pandemics and systemic external stresses. Qualitative interviews with cryptomarket drug dealers and buyers might also be useful to better understand the increase in unsuccessful transactions during the pandemic. Despite its limitation, the research design is innovative. The data source used was of great advantage since it represents drug transactions as reported by users of cryptomarkets. Unlike the official data offered in the various reports of large organizations e. UNODC; law agencies official data or by studies on the analysis of posts made in these markets e. Demant et al. The DrugRoutes website is still online and continuing to collect samples, which means that future research will present larger samples that allow us to expand upon the preliminary conclusions outlined above. While several studies have attempted to predict the general impact of the pandemic and the attendant lockdowns on the drug distribution network, they have come to wholly different conclusions. It is important to pay attention to the strategies and measures upon which these predictions are grounded, insofar as the market may adapt in a multitude of ways Giommoni, We are not claiming to be able to predict how the market will adapt; rather, this article merely hopes to contribute towards a better understanding of drug cryptomarkets, particularly during a pandemic. Project no. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. See Fig. As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Int J Drug Policy. Find articles by Luca Giommoni. Find articles by Marie-Pier Villeneuve-Dubuc. Issue date Jan. All rights reserved. Open in a new tab. Mean test of independent continuous variables for both successful and unsuccessful transactions. Similar articles. Add to Collections. Create a new collection. Add to an existing collection. Choose a collection Unable to load your collection due to an error Please try again. Add Cancel. Average Daily Death Rate for the vendor country 1. Average Daily Death Rate for the buyer country 1.

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