Who needs the dark web? Drug sales flourish on social media

For every illegal drug, there is a combination of emojis that dealers and consumers use to evade detection on social media and messaging platforms. Snowflakes, snowfall, and snowmen symbolize cocaine. Love hearts, lightning bolts, and pill capsules mean MDMA, or molly. Brown hearts and dragons represent heroin. Grapes and baby bottles are the calling cards for codeine-containing cough syrup, or lean.

The proliferation of open drug dealing on Instagram, Snapchat, and X—as well as on encrypted messaging platforms Telegram and WhatsApp—has transformed the fabric of illegal substance procurement, gradually making it more convenient, and arguably safer, for consumers, who can receive packages in the mail without meeting people on street corners or going through the rigmarole of the dark web.

There is no reliable way to gauge drug trafficking on social media, but the European Union Drugs Agency acknowledged in its latest report on the drivers of European drug sales that purchases brokered through such platforms 'appear to be gaining in prominence.'

Some dealers these days are even brazen enough to boost their posts and pay for sponsored advertising. 'Mushrooms and marijuana used to be hard to get and now they're being marketed to me in beautiful packaging on Instagram.'

Read at Ars Technica