Starting with Meow & Meow or Mephedrone in 2010 – 2011, moving to the rise and fall of The Silk Road in 2013 – 2015. Who could forget the outrage of silk road! In 2017 like a duplicate of the war on drugs, the Silk road was closed down and the drug dealers hit the underground with 100’s of new online shops on the darknet using reputation systems like ebay. Then in 2018, how do you advertise to new customers? Well you copy what others do, taking advantage of the influence of social media to showcase your wears.
“This is the new public space and the ideal platform for dealers,” says Liz McCulloch, director of policy at Volteface, who curated the study. “They can advertise in really creative ways – pictures, prizes, reaching out to people’s friends, building organic relationships. Among young people, there is a perception that they can ’vet’ them, get a sense of whether they are trustworthy.”
Its worth 5mins of your time…
