USE OF THE DARK WEB
AND SOCIAL MEDIAFOR DRUG SUPPLYOnline drug sales mirror the increase inInternet use
Use of the Internet and social media continues tospread across the globe, to the extent that two thirdsof the global population now have access to the Internet (66 per cent)1 and more than half use social media(59 per cent).2

tivityMostl

Increased digital interconnectivity has brought about
innovations in how supply chains operate, but theongoing growth of online shopping is not limited tothe purchase of licit goods. The increase in the use ofit
the Internet
among the general population is mirroredy lic acin the increase the use of the open Internet, also known

as the clear web, as well as the deep web to procuredrugs. Developments in digital communications platforms have added a new dimension to drug distribution.
In principle, almost everyone can now order drugs
online and have them delivered directly to their door,
thereby cutting out intermediaries, reducing costs andshortening supply chains.
The marketing and sale of controlled drugs and NPS
on the Internet can take place at different levels: onthe clear web, sometimes using encrypted communications tools; on certain social media applications; andon darknet markets, which form part of the deep web.
Measurements – such as the number of websites, terabytes stored on such websites or cryptocurrency

THE INTERNET: CLEAR WEB, DEEP WEB AND DARK WEB

Infrastructure consistingof a standardized set ofdata transfer protocols for
digital information exchange.

• social networks• public pages/profilesity lic ac

Dark web (darknets)

Darknets, or overlay networks
within the Internet that can
only be accessed with specificsoftware, configurations, orauthorization, and often use aunique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet
types are social networks (usuallyused for file hosting with a peer-topeer connection), and anonymity
proxy networks such as Tor via ananonymized series of connections.

Mostl

Mostl

Clear web (surface web)Content indexed by standard
web-search engines, accessible
to anyone using the Internet.

tivityvity
cti

llicit ayitivityInternetMostl

ity lic ac

USE OF THE DARK WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DRUG SUPPLYUSE OF THE DARK WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIAFOR DRUG SUPPLY

Deep webContent not indexed by standard
web-search engines; content
can be located and accessedby a direct URL or IP address
but may require a password orother security access to get past
public-website pages; includes
many very common uses suchas web mail, online banking,private or otherwise restricted
access content and profiles.

• online banking• social networks• restricted pages/profiles

125Sources: International Telecommunication Union, Measuring digitaldevelopment: Facts and Figures 2022, Statistics, Individuals using theInternet (29 July 2022); Simon Kemp, Digital 2022: Global Overview
Report (26 January 2022); CEOP, The Dark Web: what is it and why dopeople use it? https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/professionals/; Ema
Bliznovska, How Many People Use the Dark Web? (12 April 2022) and
Dave Chafffey, Global social media statistics research summary 2022,
Smart Insights, (22 August 2022).

transactions – used to assess the relative importanceand use of these Internet segments for licit or illicit
purposes are complex and are noted here only to provide some likely orders of magnitude.
The vast majority of Internet connections take placeon the deep web (accounting for an estimated 96 percent of all websites indexed by search engines, versus
4 per cent on the clear web).3, 4, 5 The deep web has awide range of legitimate uses, but also hosts the dark
web,6 which – depending on the measurements used(addresses or terabytes) – is estimated to represent
either 0.01 per cent,7 or between 5 and 10 per cent, ofthe Internet.8, 9, 10, 11 The dark web hosts a number ofillegal activities, but it seems that a large proportionof the activities carried out on it, such as communications among dissidents and critical journalists, could,
depending on the legal system, be considered to belegitimate or at least semi-legal.12

126

Most cryptocurrency transactions are not illegal. A
blockchain analysis of cryptocurrencies suggests that
only between 0.1 and 1.9 per cent of the volume of all
cryptocurrency transactions in recent years

An Internet survey conducted simultaneously in 10
European Union countries in the period 2017–2018
among some 20,000 Internet-using drug consumers,15
using various recruitment strategies,16 found that 8
per cent of survey respondents had bought drugs on
the dark web.17 This was a far smaller proportion thanthose who had bought drugs from a drug dealer (59per cent), but a significantly larger proportion thanthose who had bought drugs from an online shop (3per cent) or a specialized NPS shop (1 per cent).18
Another online survey, based on a convenience sample
of more than 100,000 participants in 35 countries
worldwide, suggested that the proportion of Internet-using drug consumers who had purchased drugs
on the dark web in the previous 12 months had morethan doubled between 2014 and 2022, from 4.7 to 10.8
per cent.19 Although plausible, these findings should
Fig. 15 Global number of Internet users, 2011–2022
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

Source: ITU, Statistics – Individuals using the Internet.

2022

Annual Memo:socialglobalmedia population
users

2021

Annual Of which Of which
Internet daily
daily
users Internet darknet
users
users

Following years of an upward trend,
drug sales on the dark web seem to havedeclined in 2022

2020

0

0.002‒0.0025

2019

1

2018

2

2017

4.3

2016

4.7

2015

3

5.1

2014

4

5.3

2013

5
BillionWORLD DRUG REPORT 2023

6

2012

7

2011

8.0

8

(2017–2022) involved transactions linked to illegal
goods and services (0.24 per cent in 2022).13 The proportions of illegal transactions are different if onlytransactions involving darknet markets are considered,however. Transactions involving darknet markets(mostly drug-related markets) accounted for 0.02 percent of all cryptocurrency transactions in 2022, themajority of which can be considered to have been
illegal.14

BillionFig. 14 Estimates of the global number of Internet
and social media users, 2022

be interpreted with caution, because they are notbased on representative global samples but on convenience samples that are characterized by anoverrepresentation of Internet users in Europe, theAmericas and Oceania.

Jan-22

Jan-21

Jan-20Jan-19Jan-18Jan-17Jan-16

Jan-15

Estimating the size of drug markets on the dark web
is challenging. An analysis of major darknet markets
using web-crawling techniques has shown that they
are highly volatile and have a propensity to disappear
at short notice as a result of both law enforcement
successes in dismantling such markets and exit scams. 20

As reported
Weighted by country population of respondents
Source: UNODC calculations based on Global Drug Survey 2022 data
(and previous years): detailed findings on drug cryptomarkets.
Note: The dotted line is the result of ex-post stratification whereby country data
were weighted by the actual population of the respective countries. Missing databy country for specific years were also interpolated from adjacent years and thatdata was assumed to have remained stable since the last survey.

Another approach has been to systematicallyinvestigate the existing blockchains of various
cryptocurrencies for suspicious addresses involved inillegal transactions, and the resulting money flows
between such addresses (cryptocurrency wallets). The
analysis of various blockchains of cryptocurrencies
suggests that darknet markets (mostly selling drugs)
continued growing up until 2021, when their combined
revenue reached a record high of an estimated $2.7
billion (equivalent to an estimated 1.5 per cent of retaildrug sales in North America and Europe), 21 before
declining by half, to around $1.3 billion in 2022, mostly

USE OF THE DARK WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DRUG SUPPLY

16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Jan-14

Percentage

Fig. 16 Proportion of drug-consuming Internet
users reporting drug purchases on the dark
web, 2014–2022

Fig. 17 Daily minimum sales (mostly drug-related: >90 per cent) on 39 major global darknet markets, 2011–2022
1,600,000
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000

Dream
Silk Road

Jul-22

Dark0deJan-22

Jul-21

Jan-21

Jul-20Jan-20Jul-19Jan-19Jul-18

Jul-17Jan-18Jan-17Jan-16

Jan-15

Jul-14Jan-14Jul-13Jan-13

Jul-12

Jan-12

Jul-11

Jan-11

Cannazon
Whitehouse

AlphaBayAgora

0Jul-16200,000

Jul-15

Dollars per day

1,400,000

Other markets
Whitehouse
Silk Road 2
Silk Road
Hydra Market
Evolution
EmpireDream
Dark0deCannazon
Alphabay
Agora
TOTAL

Source: UNODC analysis based on Hikari Labs data (see online Methodological Annex).
Note: Data refer to minimum stacked market sales of different products and services, of which drugs accounted for more than 90 per cent, and are presented as seven-day averages. Alldata shown reflect minimum sales, as the current web-crawler techniques do not cover all sites on a specific market and because not all customers leave feedback. The coverage ratios (sites
actually scraped as a proportion of all sites found on the dark web) declined, however, from an average of 65 per cent for older darknet markets that ended their mid-life prior to 2018 tosome 6 per cent for newer darknet markets. This is mainly a consequence of the very low coverage ratio of Hydra Market (less than 1 per cent). Such a decline in coverage results has led tomajor underestimates for more recent darknet sales.

127

Fig. 19 Daily revenue for (mostly drug-related)darknet market sales, based on blockchain
analysis, 2020–2022
20

3,000
2,500
2,000

98

112

19

2021

2022

Minimum sales(based on scraping of 39 darknet markets)
Estimates of overall darknet market sales(based on blockchain analysis, 2012–2021)
Estimates of overall darknet market sales(based on blockchain analysis, update)

10

5

0
2020

Sources: UNODC calculations based on Hikari Labs data andChainalysis; Crypto Crime Report 2023 (and previous years).

2022

2023

Source: Chainalysis, Crypto Crime Report 2023 (and previous years).

as a result of the dismantling of the darknet platform
Hydra Market in April 2022. 22 Nonetheless, darknet
markets continue to show resilience and started torecover in the second half of 2022.

Fig. 20 Number of active darknet markets (mostly drug-related),
2011–2022
100

50

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2013

0

2012

25

2011

International experts, meeting in late 2022, highlighted a possible shift in darknet markets, away fromprimarily retailing drugs to end users towards sellingthem wholesale as well – a trend that seems to havebeen confirmed by blockchain analysis24 more recently.
The recent decline in active darknet markets (mostly
drug-related), their participants25 and transactions26
has occurred in a context where overall darknet sales
nonetheless continued to rise until 2021, the consequence of a marked increase in average payments pertransaction and an indication that some vendors may
23

Number75

Darknet drug sales may be shifting
towards wholesale

128

2021

2014

327
2018

43

209
2017

2020

123
2016

204

75

73
2013

2014

13
2012

0

1

500

2015

1,000

2019

1,500

Million dollars

15

2011

Annual sales (million dollars)WORLD DRUG REPORT 2023

Fig. 18 Observed minimum sales on 39 major
darknet markets (mostly drug-related: >90
per cent) and estimates of overall darknet
market sales (mostly drug-related) based onblockchain analysis, 2011–2022

Active darknet markets (mostly drug-related) identified by
Chainanalysis via blockchain analysis
Active darknet markets (mostly drug-related) scraped by Hikari Labs
Sources: UNODC calculations based on Hikari Labs data and Chainalysis, Crypto Crime
Report 2023 (and previous years).

Number of participants

Number of transactions (mostly drug-related)
10,000,000

2,500,000

7,500,000
NumberNumber2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000

2,500,000

500,000
0

5,000,000

2019

2020

2021

0

2019

2020

2021

Source: Chainalysis, The 2022 Crypto Crime Report, February 2022
Note: Participants are “active users”, which is defined as a wallet that has sent or received more than $5 worth of cryptocurrency to or from darknet markets over thecourse of a year.

Fig. 22 Average size of transactions (mostly
drug-related) on the blockchain, 2016–2021

End users seem to be buying their drugs on the dark
web to a lesser extent than in previous years. 28 Qualitative information provided by people who use social
media suggests that the use of such media for drug
purchasing purposes has been increasing, especiallyat the retail level. 29 This is occurring in a context inwhich the use of social media, typically accessed via
the clear web (although not exclusively) is increasing
more rapidly than the use of the Internet in general.

500

Dollars

400
300
200

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

100
0

Use of social media for buying and selling
drugs appears to be growing

USE OF THE DARK WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DRUG SUPPLY

Fig. 21 Number of active darknet market participants (mostly drug-related) and transactions(mostly drug-related) on darknet markets, 2019–2021

Source: Chainalysis, The 2022 Crypto Crime Report, February 2022.

have started selling their drugs to drug distributors
while others may have widened their portfolio toincreasingly sell other products and services in addition
to drugs. 27

In a study conducted in the United States (2018) andSpain (2019), in which about one tenth of all Internet-using drug consumers aged 15–25 bought drugs
online, large proportions (69 per cent in the UnitedStates and 86 per cent in Spain) of online purchases
were made via social media, and the remainder on darknet markets.30 Another study, conducted in Ireland in
2021, suggested that around 64 per cent of online drug
purchases among the general population were madeusing social media, 28 per cent occurred on darknet
markets and 8 per cent were made via online shops.31
That pattern applied to most drug types.32 A previous
comparison of social media and darknet markets in
Denmark, carried out in 2017, had also suggested that129

Fig. 23 Use of traditional sources versus online purchases of drugs among Internet-using drug users aged 15–25,
the United States and Spain

WORLD DRUG REPORT 2023

United States
Drug users buying
drugs from"traditional" sources(drug dealers,friends, etc.), 19%

Non-drugusers, 79%

Drug users
buying drugs
online, 2%

Spain
Drug users buying
drugs from"traditional" sources(drug dealers,friends, etc.), 19%

Drug users buying
drugs via social
media platforms(69% of online
purchases), 1.5%

Drug users buying
drugs via social
media platforms(77% of online
purchases), 1.5%

Drug users
buying drugs
online, 2%

Non-drugusers, 79%

Drug users buying
drugs on darknet
markets (31% of
online purchases),
0.7%

Drug users buying
drugs on darknet
markets (23% of
online purchases),
0.5%

Source: Atte Oksanen, Bryan L. Miller, Iina Savolainen, Anu Sirola, Jakob Demant, Markus Kaakinen and Izabela Zych, “Social Media and Access to Drugs Online: A
Nationwide Study in the United States and Spain among Adolescents and Young Adults”, The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context (9 December2020).

130

Direct contact with source
DarknetNPS(n = 133)

Amphetamines(n = 121)"Ecstasy"(n = 711)

Cocaine(n = 1,254)

Cannabis resin(n = 461)

Cannabis herb
(n = 3,042)

The two main social media platforms identified for drug
purchases in the above-mentioned study conducted in
the United States and Spain in 2018/2019 were Facebook and Instagram.36 Findings from a study in Nordic
countries in the period September–December 2017
show that Facebook and Instagram were also the social
media platforms most commonly used for drug dealingin Denmark, Iceland and Sweden. There were no indications of drug dealing on open social media platforms
such as Facebook in Norway, however. The same was

90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

All drugs(n = 5,722)

Drugs are sold on a number of social media platforms,
including mainstream platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp. 34 Platforms thatenable social networking between strangers, such as
Tinder, Grindr, Instagram, Facebook and Discord, allow
sellers to openly “advertise” their products to unknown
buyers by constructing a public profile. Conversely,
messaging platforms, both encrypted and unencrypted,
facilitate more private drug transactions between
people who already know one another, via direct message or within the confines of a group chat.35

Fig. 24 Use of traditional sources versus online purchases ofdrugs, by drug type, among Internet-using drug users
aged 18 and older, Ireland, 2021

Percentage

most online drug purchases were made via social media(71 per cent).33

Social media
Internet shop

Source: Deirdre Mongan, Nicki Killeen, David Evans, Seán R. Millar, Eamon Keenan and
Brian Galvin, European Web Survey on Drugs 2021: Irish Results.
Note: There can be more than one source reported.

Most drug users in the samples illustrated in the graph below who purchased drugs online were men: morethan three quarters of respondents did so on darknet markets, and slightly fewer (two thirds) used social
media.

Percentage

Proportion of men among survey respondents who were Internet-using drug users purchasing drugs
online: darknet markets (cryptomarkets) versus social media, 2017–2021
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

77

Cryptomarket users in
European Web Survey on
Drugs, 2017‒2018(subsample: n=1,536)80

Cryptomarket users
in Global Drug
Survey, 2021
(subsample: n=1,444)

Darknet markets (cryptomarkets)
Social media

68

68

Messaging apps
(WhatsApp, Snapchat,
Instagram, Wickr,
Facebook messenger)
users found in Global Drug
Survey, 2021 (subsample
n=1,100)

Social media users in
New Zealand, 2020
(subsample: n=3,288)

USE OF THE DARK WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DRUG SUPPLYDrug users who purchase drugs online are predominantly men

Sources: Monica J. Barrat et al, “Exploring Televend, an Innovative Combination of Cryptomarket and Messaging App Technologies for
Trading Prohibited Drugs”, Drug and Alcohol Dependence 231 (2022); and UNODC calculations based on Alexandra Karden and Julian
Strizek, Monitoring Drug Use in the Digital Age: Studies in Web Surveys – The potential for using web surveys to investigate drug sales
through cryptomarkets on the darknet, EMCDDA Insights (Lisbon 2022).

true in Finland, where the majority of online drug purchases were made on darknet markets. One-on-one
social media forums such as Reddit seem to be preferred in Norway. 37 However, different social media
platforms may also be used for different drugs, as seenin Latin America and the Caribbean.38

User-friendliness of social media raises
new challenges
Sales on the dark web (on darknet markets) are, in general, fully anonymous transactions between sellers andbuyers that are dispatched by mail. Drug sales via social
media, although initiated anonymously, tend to require
hand-to-hand transactions, so end up in face-to-facemeet-ups arranged via one-on-one social media apps
such as Snapchat, Wickr or Facebook Messenger. 39
The need for face-to-face transactions means that theuse of social media for buying and selling drugs is moreof a localized phenomenon, 40 in which different social
media platforms dominate the scene in different countries and buyers and sellers often live in the same
country. In contrast, the use of darknet markets for
those purposes is more of a regional and, partly, global
phenomenon.41, 42, 43, 44, 45
The growing popularity of social media platforms forpurchasing drugs46 reflects a certain reluctance amongpeople to access the dark web, possibly because it is131

WORLD DRUG REPORT 2023

often perceived as requiring sophisticated IT skills to
use and as being increasingly targeted by law enforcement authorities. Social media and encrypted
messaging apps are thus seen as faster, more convenient and more user-friendly local alternatives forpurchasing drugs than the complex and volatile darknet drug markets.47, 48 Moreover, social media users
lean more towards the use of pictures, icons or emojis
that resemble the products that consumers are looking
for, thereby offering an alternative method of communicating and identifying illicit products – one that does
not require the use of conventional text and which
may be more difficult for law enforcement authorities
to identify quickly.49
The proliferation and ubiquity of social media, coupledwith its increasing use for buying and selling drugs,50,
51, 52suggest that the availability and accessibility ofdrugs are also on the increase for people with lessaccess to traditional drug markets.53 Sections of the
population can now be reached who otherwise may
not have had easy access to drug markets. In the UnitedStates – and probably in other countries as well – thegrowth of social media and access to smartphones
have led to the emergence of new threats, as criminal
drug networks have started using social media tocreate new illicit markets and target a new clientele.54
Perhaps even more problematic is that, in addition to
drugs becoming more accessible, as reported in somestudies,55, 56, 57 drug supply is now more varied in termsof the compounds and doses on offer.58, 59
This may be a particular issue for young people, as theuse of social media correlates strongly with age;60 the
youngest age groups (those aged 16 to 24)61 seem toshow the strongest inclination towards using social
media to purchase drugs,62 while the use of the dark
web for drug purchases seems to be more popularamong young adults aged 25 to 34.63, 64
Even though the available data are still not sufficiently
robust to arrive at final conclusions, published studies
suggest that drug sales via social media have grownmarkedly and may already be more significant thandrug sales via darknet markets on the dark web, notably at the retail level.65, 66

132

Sales on the dark web and on social media platforms
are, at the same time, strongly interwoven. Reports
claim that social media platforms are often used inparallel, sometimes in addition to purchases on thedark web.67 There are a multitude of social media platforms that play a role in the drug-purchasing process:first of all in establishing contacts (such as Facebook
groups or Instagram), then in offering the drugs using
photos (such as Snapchat), while subsequent deals areoften concluded on more secure social media apps
(such as Telegram) or closed channels (such as Wickr
or Facebook Messenger).68 A single app might also fulfil
more than one of the roles discussed above. On Telegram, for instance, there may be groups dedicated tothe illicit supply of drugs. In other words, that social
media platform is not only a means of concluding purchases but, simultaneously, may be also used as aplatform where contacts are established and illicit
drugs are offered (including photos of them).69, 70, 71, 72,
73
Research also suggests that some sellers obtain theirdrugs from the dark web and then resell them on social
media platforms.74

20 UNODC, World Drug Report 2022 (United Nations publication,2022).
21

1“Measuring Digital Development: Facts and Figures 2022,” n.d.,accessed April 14, 2023.

2

Dave Chaffey, “Global Social Media Statistics Research Summary
2022,” Smart Insights, August 22, 2022.

3

Douglas Karr, “What Are The Types Of The Web (Dark, Deep,
Surface, & Clear)?,” Martech Zone, January 2, 2021.

4

ClearIAS Team, “Dark Web (Darknet): Definition, Access, andThreats,” ClearIAS (blog), January 28, 2022.

5

GlobalSist, Engineering & Security Systems, “De la Clear Web a la
Dark Web,” November 22, 2018.

6

Aditi Kumar and Eric Rosenbach, “The Truth About The Dark Web,”
Finance & Development, International Monetary Fund, September
2019.

7

Cydney Grannan, “What’s the Difference Between the Deep Web
and the Dark Web?,” Encyclopædia Britannica, n.d., accessed April
14, 2023.

8

Ema Bliznovska, “How Many People Use the Dark Web?,”
WebsiteBuilder.Org (blog), April 12, 2022.

9

Darren Guccione, “What Is the Dark Web? How to Access It andWhat You’ll Find,” CSO Online, July 1, 2021.

10 Niek Dekker, “Dark Web Statistics: A Hidden World of Crime andFear,” eftsure, June 22, 2022.
11

Jessica Mudditt, “Dark Web Boom: How to Safeguard Your
Corporate Data,” INTHEBLACK, October 1, 2021.

12

Aditi Kumar and Eric Rosenbach, “The Truth About The Dark Web.”13

Chainalysis, “The Chainalysis 2023 Crypto Crime Report,”
February 2023.

14

Ibid.

15

Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg and Poland.

16

For the purposes of these European Web surveys on drugs
coordinated by EMCDDA, national partners were encouraged todevelop a variety of recruitment strategies to reach a range ofdifferent user groups. Sampling strategies were devised by eachnational partner based on their own networks and experience.
Recruitment strategies varied substantially and included
dedicated web pages, flyers distributed in clubs and bars, generalpromotion through a variety of channels (e.g. student healthinsurance websites, magazines, universities, social and counselling
service websites, and web pages targeting people who use specificdrugs), advertising in drop-in and outreach centre premises,
advertising on the darknet, offering participants the incentive ofentry in a lottery, and paid ads on social media sites. Source: JoãoMatias, Monitoring Drug Use in the Digital Age: Studies in Web
Surveys – European Web Survey on Drugs: an overview of the
project, EMCDDA Insight (December 2022).

17

Alexandra Karden and Julian Strizek, “The Potential for Using Web
Surveys to Investigate Drug Sales through Cryptomarkets on the
Darknet,” Monitoring Drug Use in the Digital Age: Studies in Web
Surveys (EMCDDA Insights, 2022).

UNODC, World Drug Report 2021 (United Nations publication,2021).

22 Chainalysis, “The Chainalysis 2023 Crypto Crime Report.”
23 “UNODC Global Partnership Event: Countering the Use of Cyber
Assets and Online Platforms in Synthetic Trafficking” (Vienna,
December 7, 2022).
24 Transactions involving the use of cryptocurrencies are usuallyentered into a ledger, called a blockchain. The content of suchblockchains can subsequently be analysed.
25 UNODC calculations based on Global Drug Survey 2022 data (andprevious years): detailed findings on drug cryptomarkets; andChainalysis, The 2022 Crypto Crime Report (February 2022).
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 UNODC calculations based on Global Drug Survey 2022 data (andprevious years): detailed findings on drug cryptomarkets;
Chainalysis, The 2022 Crypto Crime Report (February 2022).
29 Robin van der Sanden et al., “‘Choice’ of Social Media Platform or
Encrypted Messaging App to Buy and Sell Illegal Drugs,”
International Journal of Drug Policy 108 (October 2022): 103819.
30 Atte Oksanen et al., “Social Media and Access to Drugs Online: A
Nationwide Study in the United States and Spain among
Adolescents and Young Adults,” The European Journal of Psychology
Applied to Legal Context 13, no. 1 (December 22, 2020): 29–36.
31

Deirdre Mongan, Nicki Killeen, David Evans, Seán R. Millar, Eamon
Keenan, Brian Galvin, “European Web Survey on Drugs 2021: Irish
Results” (Dublin: Health Research Board, August 4, 2022).

USE OF THE DARK WEB AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR DRUG SUPPLY

Notes and references

32 Ibid.
33 Jakob Demant et al., “Drug Dealing on Facebook, Snapchat andInstagram: A Qualitative Analysis of Novel Drug Markets in theNordic Countries,” Drug and Alcohol Review 38, no. 4 (May 2019):
377–85.
34 van der Sanden et al., “‘Choice’ of Social Media Platform or
Encrypted Messaging App to Buy and Sell Illegal Drugs.”
35 Ibid.
36 Oksanen et al., “Social Media and Access to Drugs Online.”
37 Demant et al., “Drug Dealing on Facebook, Snapchat andInstagram.”
38 UNODC, “The Online Trafficking of Synthetic Drugs and Synthetic
Opioids in Latin America and the Caribbean,” 2022.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41

UNODC analysis of Hikari Labs data.

42 UNODC, “The Online Trafficking of Synthetic Drugs and Synthetic
Opioids in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
43 Oksanen et al., “Social Media and Access to Drugs Online.”

18

Ibid.

44 Demant et al., “Drug Dealing on Facebook, Snapchat andInstagram.”

19

UNODC calculations based on Global Drug Survey 2022 data
(and previous years): detailed findings on drug cryptomarkets.

45 van der Sanden et al., “‘Choice’ of Social Media Platform or
Encrypted Messaging App to Buy and Sell Illegal Drugs.”

133

46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 UNODC, “The Online Trafficking of Synthetic Drugs and Synthetic
Opioids in Latin America and the Caribbean.”WORLD DRUG REPORT 2023

49 Ibid.
50 van der Sanden et al., “‘Choice’ of Social Media Platform or
Encrypted Messaging App to Buy and Sell Illegal Drugs.”
51

United States Drug Enforcement Administration, “Social MediaDrug Trafficking Threat,” January 2022.

52 UNODC, “The Online Trafficking of Synthetic Drugs and Synthetic
Opioids in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
53 van der Sanden et al., “‘Choice’ of Social Media Platform or
Encrypted Messaging App to Buy and Sell Illegal Drugs.”
54 United States Drug Enforcement Administration, “Social MediaDrug Trafficking Threat.”
55

Jakob Demant and Silje A. Bakken, “Technology-Facilitated Drug
Dealing via Social Media in the Nordic Countries,” Background
Paper Commissioned by the EMCDDA for the EU Drug Markets
Report 2019, November 26, 2019.

56 Demant et al., “Drug Dealing on Facebook, Snapchat andInstagram.”
57

Silje Anderdal Bakken and Jakob Johan Demant, “Sellers’ Risk
Perceptions in Public and Private Social Media Drug Markets,”
International Journal of Drug Policy 73 (November 2019): 255–62.

58 United States Drug Enforcement Administration, “Social MediaDrug Trafficking Threat.”59 Teodora Groshkova, Andrew Cunningham, Paul Griffiths, Roumen
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134

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