The Presence of New Psychoactive Substances in a Tor Network Marketplace Environment

ABSTRACT

Prior research has documented the availability of drugs on many Tor Network websites, with the Internet playing a particularly vital role in the global new psychoactive substances (NPS) market. The primary objective of this research was to document types of NPS for sale on the largest operating Tor site (Agora) over a period of four months. Secondary objectives were to analyze countries and vendors sourcing NPS on Agora. Data from Agora were collected in February and June 2015. The number of total advertisements on Agora increased from 20,742 to 27,431 over the four months, while the number of NPS advertisements increased from 2,205 to 2,271 and the number of vendors increased from 157 to 288. The composition of NPS listings and source countries for NPS advertised on Agora diversified over time. Advertisements for ketamine and unclassified NPS experienced substantial growth, while the availability of phenethylamines decreased. However, phenethylamines remained the most frequently advertised NPS type. China and the U.S. were found to be the top two countries by volume selling NPS on Agora over the fpir months, but the number of countries identified as advertising NPS increased by nearly 43%. The United States housed the most NPS vendors.

KEYWORDS:

• Designer drugs
• Internet
• new psychoactive substances
• the Tor Network

Notes

1. “Complete” and “full” crawls capture the entirety of the website regarding all advertisements and vendor information publically available on the day of the crawl. “Partial” crawls do not capture the totality of this information and are used to help direct and configure the webcrawling software.

2. For instance, mirroring user forums as well as active listings greatly decreases the efficiency of the webcrawling software and significantly increases the chances for the software to become sidetracked.

3. Prices are displayed in the customer’s preferred currency, although all transactions are conducted in BitCoin.

4. Vendor accounts were coded as “NPS vendors” if they advertised any NPS listings, regardless of how many other drug or non-drug items the vendor advertised. In other words, if Vendor 1 advertised one ketamine listing and five heroin listings, Vendor 1 was coded as an NPS vendor. Vendor names are not reported in this study.

5. In February, Agora advertised approximately 20,742 items for sale; in June, that number increased to 27,431.

6. Piperazines were a percentage change outlier.

7. It is important to note that these data do not reflect the geographic locations of consumers. It may be the case that a large number of ketamine vendors in the Netherlands (for instance) do not represent a large Dutch consumer base for ketamine.