One in five of the illicit drugs sold on the dark web in Australia don’t contain any of the advertised drug, new research by three of Australia’s top universities has found.
The RMIT-led study analysed 103 illicit drug samples sourced from the now-defunct dark web forum Test4Pay.
The researchers found more than one third (35 per cent) were not what they were sold as.
While 14 per cent had a mixture of the advertised substance with other psychoactive or potentially harmful chemicals, 21 per cent did not contain any of the advertised substances.
The likelihood of the substance being substituted depended on the type of drug, with products sold as ketamine, 2C-B and alprazolam the most likely to be completely swapped with other substances or new synthetic drugs.
Only four out of 19 “cocaine” samples tested were pure cocaine, 13 were combined with other substances and two didn’t contain any cocaine at all.
The samples of MDMA, methamphetamines and heroin sourced by the research team were consistently found to only contain the advertised substance.
Lead researcher and RMIT Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow, Dr Monica Barratt, said the results were concerning as drugs sold through cryptomarkets – online vendors on the dark web – were generally believed to be less likely to be mixed or substituted with other substances.
”Cryptomarkets allow anonymous buyers to review purchases, which theoretically means vendors who sell inferior products are more likely to receive bad reviews, thereby rewarding vendors selling superior products,” said Barratt.
“But despite this perception of accountability and quality, our findings show prohibited drugs purchased from cryptomarkets are still not safe from adulteration and substitution.”
Barratt said that with Australians finding more new ways to access illicit drugs, it was more urgent than ever to launch more drug-checking services.
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A 2022 systemic review of pill testing found people who found unexpected substances in their drugs were more likely to discard them and adjust their use.
