
How to Buy Drugs - QuesnayJr
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n21/misha-glenny/how-to-buy-drugs
======
pizzaparty2
Prescription drugs? Because I need some and it takes months and time off work
and repeated Dr and specialist and procedure trips just to get an antibiotic
called Rifaximin that can cure certain types of IBS. Last time it took six
months, a thousand dollars, four or five days off work, and a colonoscopy
before I could get a prescription. But they don't prescribe enough to actually
cure it. Is there a black market for this? I'm asking for a friend.

~~~
roberte3
Alibaba...

A few years back, I was prescribed a anti cancer, prescription drug that costs
$4k per box. (5mg per day, 28day day supply).

I went on Ali, and ordered 5lbs of the drug for $100 usd including shipping.

~~~
ihattendorf
Honest question, how do you know you're actually getting the correct drug and
that it isn't contaminated or cut with something else?

~~~
rootsudo
You can test it yourself, but many times the same manufacturer in the USA is
the same abroad.

I would say India for Drugs is not a bad idea - if you're worried it's "from"
China.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I have not the remotest idea how I would test a cancer drug for myself to see
if it was pure. I suppose I could hire a chemical laboratory, if I could
figure out what kind of one would do that kind of work...

~~~
npo9
> I have not the remotest idea how I would test a cancer drug for myself

As someone with only a high school level of chemistry training I would check
the melting temperature.

Although seriously get it professionally tested. The delta between USA prices
and India/China prices is so high a lab test will barely change the margins.

------
mcnichol
This writer is brilliant. Never have done (and really never was that
interested in) drugs, but the air of mystery and cat & mouse that he wrote in
was just fantastic.

A very serious subject with very real consequences but what a ride that story
was. Well written and well played.

~~~
paultopia
Yeah, agreed---the end is particularly well done. The reveal about the police
strategy with the DDOS!

~~~
boomskats
Spoiler alert!

------
brendonjohn
> full-service dealers advertise their wares is through Snapchat or WhatsApp:

Oh dear, just because a snap disappears doesn't mean a record doesn't exist.

While Snapchat (I don't know about WhatsApp) says that they "typically" don't
retain your expired story data, you only need one of your friends/followers to
be using a third-party app that does capture and retain data for your record
to persist.

I'm guessing that the moment an account is of interest to law enforcement, a
social network organization is obligated to start persisting and reporting
account data.

~~~
therealx
Most snapchat/whatsapp dealers are 100% fake. Engage with them and see how
fast it turns into the same scam language someone on Craigslist trying to buy
your item from another state is.

~~~
0xdeadb00f
> Most snapchat/whatsapp dealers are 100% fake

You'd be surprised how dumb some dealers can be. (This also depends on the
location). I may or may not know of people who used to operate on Facebook
Messenger, Instagram, but Snapchat is surprisingly popular.

Most dealers who have half a brain use Wickr (it being closed source; I still
don't approve, but it's better than Snapchat).

------
Gomer1800
“ As a consequence, the drugs available to the informed buyer are of a higher
quality than ever before. They are also safer.”

If only we could say the same about the people exploited along the chain of
production of these drugs

~~~
Apocalypse_666
I’d buy fair trade drugs if I could

~~~
Gomer1800
Hell I would too! So long as I could go to sleep at night knowing my money
didnt help finance violence and corruption.

Thats why I really hope we legalize recreational drugs. Tackling supply and
the demand just doesnt work, people want them.

------
stickfigure
Fascinating. What sort of legal liability would someone take on by publishing
'secure darkweb marketplace software' as open source?

Asking for a friend interested in civil liberties and civil disobedience.

~~~
blackflame
Well you might want to familiarize yourself with this story first:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht)

~~~
wolco
Writing open source software designed for the .onion network is different than
running a drug platform over the darknet.

Writing software doesn't get you in trouble. Choosing to stock ads for
products like guns/drugs might.

~~~
dewey
> Writing software doesn’t get you in trouble

[https://www.wired.com/story/wannacry-malwaretech-
arrest/](https://www.wired.com/story/wannacry-malwaretech-arrest/)

------
SlowRobotAhead
The idea the police prevented access to a well protected site to move traffic
to a site they had control of is fairly clever.

~~~
eindiran
A few years ago the police did something similar by running a honeypot site
called Hansa [0]; they gained control of the site, but rather than shutting it
down immediately, they quietly ran the site for a few months, making changes
to it in the background. Then, they siezed the big darknet market at the time,
Alphabay [1], which drove everyone on the site, dealers and users alike, onto
Hansa.

Before the influx of users, they had modified the site to record a lot of data
that a normal darknet market wouldn't. For example, instead of discarding
photo metadata, it would extract it for law-enforcement use. They changed
built-in PGP encryption software on the site, so that when people used it, it
would first record the information entered before creating the message and
sending it to the other user, which allowed them to get information like
mailing addresses. Instead of hashing and salting passwords, they recorded
them in plaintext, which allowed them to capture accounts on other markets
when users had recycled usernames and passwords.

The operation, called Operation Bayonet [2], was complex enough that several
different law enforcement agencies from Europe and the US were involved. The
Dutch police, Interpol, the FBI and DEA etc. It was quite an interesting case.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansa_(market)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansa_\(market\))

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaBay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaBay)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bayonet_(darknet)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bayonet_\(darknet\))

~~~
x220
You can protect against these attacks and maintain your privacy by doing the
following:

1\. After you take a picture, open that image on your computer and take a
screenshot of that image and crop as needed. This removes all camera metadata.

2\. Use a program for PGP encryption. Type out your message on Notepad or
whatever, encrypt it _locally_ , then paste the encrypted message into the
website's message box.

3\. Use a randomly generated username and password. Generate a different
username _and_ password for each site.

Don't break the law, kids!

~~~
eindiran
Yeah, this vector was avoidable by individuals who had good operational
security, but the operation still got addresses for 10K+ individuals: they
recorded around 27K transactions, so that means over a third of users relied
on the built-in PGP tool!

------
henearkr
I completely agree that legalization and education is the only rational
solution. In many countries people are already too confident in the legal
system to make life choices for them, and they tell with a straight face that
anything "is good for health because else why would it not be made illegal
already?".

~~~
henearkr
Okay I am going to contradict myself a little bit now... actually, today the
state is also healing people when they are sick, using tax money for that. So,
just letting people make themselves sick and then suck up tax money to get
back on their feet is very counterproductive... which is why "prevention" is
so important, and why so many substances are regulated or forbidden.

~~~
x220
The state is not a business and does not have to make decisions based on the
cost/benefit analysis from a monetary or tax collecting perspective. In the US
for example, LSD and psilocybin are illegal even though there is zero chance
for chemical addiction or dependence. In Canada and the US you can get a
prescription for Klonopin, which sounds roughly as addictive as cocaine.
People have gone to rehab for Klonopin addiction--for a prescription anti-
anxiolytic!

~~~
henearkr
But it has to be somewhere in the lawmaking process. Imagine there is a
perfect but very costly cure for Alzheimer, imagine the price to cure one
person is equivalent to the GDP of the whole country.

On the other hand, you cannot let people harm themselves and then do
everything to save them. What is the cost to repair somebody who went out of
his way to cut his hand in a very dirty way, such that it would take hundred
of hours of surgery?

~~~
x220
In democratic countries the politicians care about how the expenditure looks
to the public. People think that 5 billion dollars in welfare is a lot of
money, so it's hard to spend more welfare. People do not think that 5 trillion
dollars on "defense" is a lot of money, so it's easy to spend more money on
defense even though it has at best dubious return on investment.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/wwOyk](http://archive.is/wwOyk)

~~~
n2j3
or [https://outline.com/C4gf4U](https://outline.com/C4gf4U)

~~~
justaj
Nah, at least I can view archive.is links without JS enabled.

~~~
n2j3
aye, tried opening the outline url via w3m (text browser) and all i got was a
blank page :(

------
doublerabbit
Agora was another market who made sailed off in to the sea keeping true to
their words. Everyone got their money from escrow, no one was scammed and was
always under DDoS.

One of the true market legends of the time.

------
seisvelas
Haha here in CDMX I live a few blocks from Tepito and you can't walk in on a
busy day without someone trying to sell you weed or coke.

I personally stick to my drug of choice: pambazos. I don't even want to quit.

~~~
not_real_acct
When I went on vacation to Europe, that was one of the most noticeable
differences from the United States. In Prague in particular, people were
aggressively selling drugs.

And I look like a complete Square.

------
yessenia1
The last paragraph claims police DDoS attacked a site. Is this legal?

~~~
jalla
Who will sue the police? Who will investigate the police?

LEA and intelligence agencies operate in legally grey areas because the know
they can get away with it and the politicians are happy that results can be
shown.

Parallel construction is often used, involving private sector 3rd parties.

~~~
spacemanmatt
CO cops just won on appeal for demolishing a home to catch a thief who made
off with a shirt and belt from Wal-Mart. It's doubtful they could be held
accountable for pigging up a computer network.

------
bsimpson
tl;dr:

A dark web drug marketplace was well-secured, but a competitor was not.
Frustrated law enforcement is rumored to have DOSed the well-protected site to
drive buyers to the less-well-protected site, which was promptly seized by
LEOs.

------
ur-whale
[http://archive.is/wwOyk](http://archive.is/wwOyk)

------
pvaldes
Medicines: Schedule a free consult with the doctor in your healthcare area.
Obtain a stamped and signed recipe based in his/her professional opinion. Ask
for the product in the next pharmacy and exchange your recipe for the product.
Pay a small amount or nothing at all. Say thanks and have a good day. Finish.

Illegal drugs: Are you fishing? Good try.

------
nloladze
Just decriminalize it already. Tax it, inspect for quality and offer tax-free
mandated psychiatric and clinical checkups every six to eighteen months (paid
for by taxes and imports) and start busting dealers and suppliers for tax
evasion; not possession or intent to distribute. 50% to 90% user rate drop,
far less overdoses and overall huge tax increases.

~~~
gambiting
While I can see the argument for decriminalisation of most drugs, I can't
believe something like fentanyl should ever be. Just like you can't legally
buy cyanide without a permit - it's just too dangerous to allow free market
distribution.

~~~
jdc
The rise of fentanyl trafficking is largely a result of prohibition. Imagine
you are a drug smuggler. Now would you rather have truck load worth $100k or a
briefcase worth $100k?

~~~
rkoten
Doesn't the same logic apply if you're a legitimate provider?

~~~
taurath
You’d rather have a truck load of legal goods than a briefcase full of illegal
goods. Illegality is a big cost.

~~~
celticninja
Not if the equivalent value was the same. The briefcase is easier and less
conspicuous to transport.

~~~
PeterisP
Transporting a truck of legal goods across a whole continent and multiple
countries is much cheaper and easier than a briefcase of illegal drugs.

The total cost of risk-free (i.e. fully insured) delivery of a truckful of
goods is trivial compared to even quite cheap products; while that briefcase
would pretty much have to double in value after that long trip to make the
transport profitable.

~~~
celticninja
That briefcase will increase in value ten fold over the journey. So my point
stands, easier to transport the briefcase and the returns are better. The risk
is higher but that is why the returns are higher.

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GEBBL
Is there a non paywalled version of this article anywhere?

~~~
fb03
i have a question: would it be illegal for me or anyone else to access it,
copy and paste it somewhere else? this sucks

~~~
baroffoos
Its copyright infringement but as usual, nothing will happen if you did copy
and paste it.

------
rambojazz
I'd rather not know that an article exist than being told "you have 1 free
article this month".

