New report exposes how easy it is for young people to buy drugs on social media

By Sofia Gallarate

Published Sep 9, 2019 at 12:30 PM

Reading time: 4 minutes

3516

Forget street corners, dodgy cars, or the dark web. According to the trailblazing report DM for Details: Selling Drugs in the Age of Social Media published over the weekend by the think-tank Volteface, social media platforms are the new marketplace for selling and buying drugs, particularly among young people.

Drugs being sold on the internet is not necessarily news, but the report reveals how the phenomenon came a long way since drugs were bought with Bitcoins on Silk Road. The proliferation of drug dealing accounts on the most common platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook speaks of a grand-scale hashtag-driven trend, one that regulators are evidently struggling to keep up with.

Through evidence-based policy and reform, Volteface aims to reduce the harm drugs pose to individuals and society. When the organisation began the study, it was not expecting the issue of online drug dealing to be this extensive. Scarlett Furlong, the policy advisor at Volteface and co-author of the report, told Screen Shot, “When we started this research, we weren’t really sure about how big of an issue this was, particularly in the U.K. context. When finding that 1 in 4 young people have seen drugs advertised for sale we realised the range was quite abnormal,” adding that, “We were meant to publish this report last February, but after seeing how relevant all data were, we realised it was necessary to publish all our findings.” Alongside interviews and focus groups with children, the police, and youth workers, the report’s results are mainly based on polls of 2,006 young people, aged 16 to 24 years old, as well as observational trawls of Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram, where the researchers went undercover to observe the ways online drug dealings operate.

Drugs-on-Snapchat

According to the report, it seems that social media is not only a place for customers to find and purchase drugs, but also an arena for targeting different demographics to become new customers, including new dealers. Young people who otherwise might have never ended up within an environment where drugs are sold and bought offline, could now find themselves just a few hashtags and scrolls away from online communities of drug dealers. One of the main concerns raised by the report is the role that social media platforms are playing in normalising drug use. During its study, Volteface interviewed an anonymous young person who admitted that, “it romanticises it. People think that nothing can go wrong. It really overshadows any drug education people had in the past, like in PSHE lessons or anything like that.”

Personal relationships between dealers and customers have always existed, but social media has tightened the gap between the two parties, creating a close relationship before any transactions take place. It creates the same feeling of familiarity we might have with strangers we follow on Instagram. As quoted in the report, potential buyers “stumble upon numerous dealers showing what young people perceive to be their ‘authentic’ self, or, as is the case with all social media, a side of themselves that the dealer wants the social media user to see. Drug dealers posting about going to college, talking about their family and going to comedy shows.” Dealers are suddenly like everyone else, and with that dispelling any connotations of dangerous and illicit activities that previously existed.

drug emoji index

The design of our favourite online platforms, as well as their algorithms, plays a crucial role in the spreading of online drug dealing. Via features such as the ‘suggested friends’ bar and by looking at other people’s ‘following’, ‘follower’ or ‘friends’ list, young persons could find dealers extremely easily. Compared to the dark web, for instance, social media platforms are more user-friendly and way less complicated to navigate, and features such as screenshots, hashtags, swipe-ups, and saved Instagram stories are allowing dealers to be as creative as they want when advertising their products.

Drug dealing has always had specific codes attached to it, including slang that develops with time. Within this context, emojis have become the ultimate alphabet to communicate prices and offers. With an entire visual vocabulary at their disposal, dealers found the perfect way to describe their products clearly without using explicit descriptions nor posting graphic images of actual drugs—although this happens quite frequently too. Eventually, like every digital phenomenon, drug dealing too has picked up the dynamics that are intrinsic to social media platforms: with dealers doing shout-outs to other dealers, calling out scammers, and even growing a considerable amount of followers.

The report goes beyond revealing the shift from offline to online dealing, as it’s shedding light on current drug trends more broadly. “One of the things I was most surprised by was the prescription medications that were sold online. Xanax is the fourth most seen drug that young people have seen online,” Furlong said. The rise of prescribed drugs and their success on social media is an indication of today’s tendencies when it comes to drug consumption. Xanax is the fourth most seen drugs on social media, just after weed, cocaine, and ecstasy—a finding that hasn’t yet been properly acknowledged by institutions, schools, and experts.

The relentless proliferation of online drug dealing and the explicitness through which dealers are using social media platforms clearly speak of a delay in regulations and effective controls. Like with most digital phenomenons, regulators are struggling to keep up with the pace and the codes of online drug dealing. “We want to share all the information we have collected with legislators and companies alike to make sure we all work together to prevent this to grow exponentially,” Furlong adds.

According to Volteface, the government should introduce a regulatory requirement for social media companies to monitor activity on their platforms and to ensure that they are aware of how language, emojis, and design features are used to facilitate drug dealing. Moreover, the report recommends that this research is used to inform already existing algorithms that monitor and remove dealers’ accounts and that “Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram should be included within the scope of the Government’s Online Harms regulatory framework”. Staying coherent with its belief, Volteface is confident that even in this context, cannabis legalisation would be the most effective policy to alleviate the problems outlined in the study.

This phenomenon isn’t simply the migration of drug dealing from real life to the Internet, but also seems to be a brand new way of dealing illegal substances altogether; it is a way of selling and purchasing drugs that is infused with the same social media dynamic young people relate to on a daily basis.

Keep On Reading

By Charlie Sawyer

The #MeToo movement is at risk. How the Harvey Weinstein retrial risks doing unimaginable damage 

By Abby Amoakuh

I sat down with two professional matchmakers to solve Gen Z’s dating fatigue

By Eliza Frost

Why is Taylor not Team Conrad in The Summer I Turned Pretty?

By Abby Amoakuh

From dinner parties to grocery flexing: Inside Gen Z’s new language of luxury

By Eliza Frost

Misogyny, sexism, and the manosphere: how this year’s Love Island UK has taken a step backwards

By Eliza Frost

All the Easter eggs from the first episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3

By Eliza Frost

How exactly is the UK government’s Online Safety Act keeping young people safe? 

By Abby Amoakuh

BLACKPINK’s Lisa faces backlash after wearing civil rights icon Rosa Parks on her crotch at Met Gala

By Charlie Sawyer

What is ketamine therapy, the psychiatric treatment healing famous Mormons Jen and Zac Affleck’s marriage?

By Charlie Sawyer

Did Tim Cheese murder John Pork, and how is Simon Claw involved? The lore, explained

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Keke Palmer’s past resurfaces amid backlash over Jonathan Majors podcast interview

By Charlie Sawyer

SHEIN faces fines from EU for deceiving customers with fake discounts and misleading information

By Eliza Frost

Jessie Cave was banned from a Harry Potter fan convention because of her OnlyFans account

By Eliza Frost

Will Belly choose herself in the final episodes of The Summer I Turned Pretty?

By Abby Amoakuh

Everything there is to know about the third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty

By Charlie Sawyer

Who is Zohran Mamdani, the staunch socialist primed to become New York’s first Muslim mayor?

By Eliza Frost

Couples who meet online are less happy in love, new research finds

By Eliza Frost

UK to lower voting age to 16 by next election. A controversial move, but the right one

By Fatou Ferraro Mboup

Trump launches his 2028 presidential campaign, ignoring constitutional limitations

By Charlie Sawyer

Trump grants white South Africans refuge after ending legal protections for Afghans facing deportation