Research paper Who sells what? Country specific differences in substance availability on the Agora cryptomarket Joe Van Buskirk a, *, Sundresan Naicker a , Amanda Roxburgh a , Raimondo Bruno b , Lucinda Burns a a National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia b University of Tasmania, School of Medicine, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 14 September 2015 Received in revised form 19 May 2016 Accepted 11 July 2016 Keywords: Cryptomarkets New technologies New psychoactive substances A B S T R A C T Background: To date monitoring of cryptomarkets operating on the dark net has largely focused on market size and substance availability. Less is known of country specific differences in these indicators and how they may corroborate population prevalence estimates for substance use in different countries. Methods: All substance listings from the cryptomarket Agora were recorded over seven time points throughout February and March 2015. Agora was chosen due to its size as the second largest cryptomarket operating and the level of detail of information provided in individual substance listings. Data were collated and the number of unique sellers selling each substance by country of origin was analysed. Results: An average of 14,456.7 substance listings were identified across sampled days from 868.7 unique sellers. The top five countries by number of listings were the USA, United Kingdom, Australia, China and the Netherlands, collectively accounting for 61.8% of all identified listings and 68% of all unique sellers. Australia was over represented in terms of sellers per capita, while China was over represented in new psychoactive substance (NPS) listings. When examined by number of listings per seller, the Netherlands and China stood out as particularly large, likely due to these countries’ role in the local production of various illicit and new psychoactive substances. Conclusions: Numbers of sellers by country of origin appear to be influenced by several factors. Australia’s overrepresentation in sellers per capita may indicate its relative geographical isolation and the potential for profit margins from selling online, while China’s overrepresentation in NPS listings may reflect domestic production of these substances. Continued monitoring will provide enhanced understanding of the increasingly complex and globalised nature of illicit drug markets. ã 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Introduction It has been estimated the global disease burden for illicit drugs attributable to mental, neurological and substance use disorders has increased by 37.6% between 1990 and 2010, with substance use disorders accounting for around 2% of all global disease burden (Whiteford, Ferrari, Degenhardt, Feigin, & Vos, 2013; Whiteford et al., 2015). This presents unique and complex challenges to health systems due to psychosocial and socioeconomic costs of addiction, adverse events and related criminal activity that may be associated with the acquisition and consumption of illicit substances (Chandler, Fletcher, & Volkow, 2009). The rise of the use of the internet over the past two decades has led to the development of new methods of distribution of substances (Walsh, 2011). Initially this appeared driven by the sale of illicit pharmaceuticals, and later, the introduction of new classes of substances, deemed ‘new psychoactive substances’ (NPS), not subject to international legislative control (Boyer, Shannon, & Hibberd, 2005). The more recent advent of the ‘dark net’, using Tor (‘The Onion Router’), which reroutes user connections through anonymising servers, to access websites has made it possible to sell and source substances online with greater anonymity and hence reduced risk of detection and prosecution. Since the dark net and its use for illicit drug trading reached public awareness in 2011 (Chen, 2011), it has become a well-established mode for both purchasing and selling illicit substances at an international level. Specifically, the development of increasingly secure and anonymous ‘cryptomar- kets’, that operate on the dark net in a similar fashion to clear net marketplaces such as Ebay (Barratt, 2012). The number and capacity of dark net ‘cryptomarkets’ has increased since 2011, with current research reporting over 5000 unique sellers operating * Corresponding author at: National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, 22-32 King St, Randwick 2031, Australia. Fax: +61 2 9385 0222. E-mail address: j.vanbuskirk@unsw.edu.au (J. Van Buskirk). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.07.004 0955-3959/ã 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. International Journal of Drug Policy 35 (2016) 16–23 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Drug Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locat e/drugpo Downloaded from ClinicalKey.com at Inova Fairfax Hospital - JCon January 07, 2017. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. Copyright ©2017. Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.