Bust to boom: How drugs won the war on drugs – Mixmag

But its not just the old favourites that are available in such glut: psychedelic oddities such as DMT and 2-CB once known only to the tripping cognoscenti are now part of a narcotic smorgasbord found at every festival and every house party, along with LSD, nitrous oxide, and, of course, ketamine. And that is thanks to technology.

Read this next: The rise and fall and rise of ketamine

Darknet markets using encryption and bitcoin have revolutionised the way drugs are bought and sold, starting with the Silk Road in February 2011. And while occasional busts do occur, police claims of success are always overstated. As soon as one market closes, another opens. A quick scan of the web shows 25 markets all online today.

And even if you or your friends dont score on a darknet market, your dealer may well do.

Before 2015, I didnt have a connect for bulk mandy (MDMA), says Ben*, a 35-year-old bar worker and part-time dealer in east London. Now I get 250g for 1,200 on the dark web twice a month. Sometimes we use Wickr (a secure messaging app) if the markets go down. It costs me about a fiver a gramme. I knock it out at 3g for 100 (33 a gramme) delivered, on Friday and Saturday nights.

Read this next: We spoke to an ecstasy dealer from the acid house era

Ben uses WhatsApp and Signal (an encrypted messaging app) to collect orders in the week, and has two trusted workers making rounds at weekends. He, and they operate a multi-level marketing system: introduce new customers, and you get free drugs.

This model of technology-assisted acquisition and distribution is commonplace now, and its one that simply did not exist a decade ago.

Drugs, then, have never been more available, abundant, pure or cheap as they are in 2019.

And they have never been more popular, according to the latest Home Office data. Almost 4 per cent of people in England and Wales 1.25 million people reported they had taken a Class A drug in the last year. This is the highest proportion of Class A drug use since data-collection began in 1996.

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Bust to boom: How drugs won the war on drugs - Mixmag