The digital black market for drugs

People have found a safer way to get around the prohibtion on drugs.  Not surprisingly, Bitcoin is the preferred medium of exchange for people making these voluntary exchanges.  What’s also interesting here is that suppliers are rated on quality of service and product, something not readily available in the underground market (I don’t think).

The Underground Website Where You Can Buy Any Drug Imaginable

Adrian Chen—Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying cocaine can get you shot. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? Now you can: Welcome to Silk Road.

About three weeks ago, the U.S. Postal Service delivered an ordinary envelope to Mark’s door. Inside was a tiny plastic bag containing 10 tabs of LSD. “If you had opened it, unless you were looking for it, you wouldn’t have even noticed,” Mark told us in a phone interview.

Mark, a software developer, had ordered the 100 micrograms of acid through a listing on the online marketplace Silk Road. He found a seller with lots of good feedback who seemed to know what they were talking about, added the acid to his digital shopping cart and hit “check out.” He entered his address and paid the seller 50 Bitcoins—untraceable digital currency—worth around $150. Four days later the drugs, sent from Canada, arrived at his house. “It kind of felt like I was in the future,” Mark said.

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