Ball State students talk future of online drug sales

Prior to being shut down, the Silk Road website sold drugs, ranging from marijuana to heroin, and weapons. Users made purchases through bitcoin currency.

• The website had 957,079 registered users

• The U.S. government shut it down on Oct. 2

• The FBI has arrested 10 people internationally

EDITOR’S NOTE: David Smith and Jason Johnson are pseudonyms for students who wish to remain anonymous.

He considered ordering it for a while. Once he did, he waited anxiously for the flat pack envelope to arrive.

David Smith, a Ball State student, had just ordered drugs online for the first time.

The 2C-B, a rare hallucinogen typically found in Europe, he ordered was from Poland. The package had to go through international customs with his real name and address on it.

“Once the package is in the mail, the paranoia kind of sits in,” he said. “There is no stopping it at that point. You have drugs coming to your house in the mail. You can’t do anything about it at that point. But I’ve had nothing but positive experiences, and they all came through.”

On Oct. 2, the FBI arrested Ross William Ulbricht, a man who referred to himself as Dread Pirate Roberts online. Ulbricht ran the website that connected drug dealers and drug users from all over the world to make sales and purchases anonymously, using Bitcoin currency and encryption.

The official U.S. Attorney complaint said approximately 957,079 registered user accounts reflected on the Silk Road server.

Smith said the reason he began using Silk Road was partially for safety.

“Basically, it was just as a way to find high quality, pure substances that are actually the substance that they claim to be and not what some stupid college kid is trying to pass off as acid,” he said.

Silk Road could be used to buy any drugs from marijuana to heroin. People also could buy weapons from the website.

ROAD CLOSED

More than 10 Silk Road users have been arrested internationally. According to Reuters, the FBI said there will be more arrests. Smith said he didn’t worry about the arrests because the federal agents are looking for people who bought large quantities of drugs to distribute. He only bought drugs for personal use in quantities of a gram or less.

Users of Silk Road used a Tor client that scrambles IP addresses to access the website. Drugs and other illegal items were purchased online through Bitcoin currency, which are encrypted money deposits.

“Once you figure out bitcoins, which is a 15-minute Google search pretty much, you transfer them to what is called your wallet on Silk Road or any other website like that,” he said.

Smith said the website is then as easily accessible as commonly known shopping websites.

“Once they are on Silk Road, it is Amazon,” Smith said. “You treat it just like you have store credit on Amazon or eBay and fill up your shopping cart.”

All drugs and sellers include rating and review information, which speak to the quality of the drug, the stealth of the package and the overall quality of the transaction.

Jason Johnson, another Ball State student, said he even had a buyer back out of a transaction once.

“The bitcoins were returned to my account almost immediately,” he said. “That proved to me that the site was really legit. I was pretty surprised.”

THE DANGER OF PURCHASING IN PERSON

When purchasing drugs online, Smith said he knows he is getting exactly what he wants. The reviews from other purchasers help users’ peace of mind, he said.

Drugs are commonly reported as being cut with something dangerous or not being what drug dealers advertise. Cocaine is often cut with levamisole, used as livestock dewormer, according to an ABC News report.

Local drug dealers, such as in Muncie, sometimes sell different chemicals, knowingly or unknowingly, as LSD.

“In the ’60s and ’70s, if you were given blotter, it was LSD,” Smith said. “There were no other chemicals really that was commonly circulated, where as today, we have psychedelic amphetamines. So we have the DOx series; it’s DOC, DOB, DOM. All of those fit on blotter. 25I-NBOMe, Bromo-DragonFLY. These sound like made up drugs, and it is because they are new and unresearched.”

Smith said taking NBOMe instead of LSD is easy, but also very dangerous.

“It is a very narrow range of active dose and over dose with LSD and NBOMe,” he said. “There’s a sweet spot, and if you take what you think is 10 hits of LSD, it could be 10 hits of 25I-NBOMe, and it could be a trip to the hospital or a morgue as a result.”

Smith said when he bought what he thought was acid, he quickly realized it was NBOMe, but he decided to trip nonetheless.

“One of the telling features of NBOMe is that it has a really, really strong bitter metallic taste, and it numbs the tongue,” he said. “[A] blotter that does that is NBOMe and not LSD. Right away, when I put the tabs on my tongue, I was like, ‘Oh no. This is not LSD.’

“Comparing the two is they are just very, very different,” he said. “Whereas LSD is kind of artistic and makes you feel so very connected with everything, it kind of puts you in this very introspective, but also feeling of connectedness with everyone else. NBOMe is very lucid. It doesn’t feel like you’re on a drug, but everything is melting and pixelating. It feels like you’re sober, but just watching the world melt in front of you. It is kind of a different experience and not a very pleasant one.”

Even some local drug dealers don’t know that they are selling people the wrong drugs.

“You don’t know how high up your friends who get that ‘bomb acid,’ like how far up people are being deceived,” Smith said. “I assume the people who he was buying it off of knew what they were doing. I’m sure they do, actually. People just see huge profit margins and don’t think of the consequences of selling chemicals that aren’t what they are reported to be.”

FUTURE OF ONLINE BLACK MARKETS

Now that Silk Road is closed, Black Market Reloaded and Sheep Marketplace seem to be the top anonymous drug selling websites.

Smith said he thinks another website will be on Silk Road’s level eventually.

“I think that Silk Road was a blow to a lot of people right now, but it was just the beginning of a movement that really can’t be stopped,” he said. “And I know that sounds really political and ‘f—k the government, they shutdown Silk Road,’ but it’s economics because the demand for drugs is never going to decline.

“We have the technology at our fingertips. It is just a matter of when people will step up and launch new sites and learn from Silk Road’s mistakes of security risks.”

Johnson said just because Silk Road has been found out doesn’t mean the next big thing will be found quickly.

“Once you’re in the underbelly of the Internet, it is hard to track, even for the FBI,” he said. “I think the next website could get caught for sure, but I don’t think it will happen for a while.”

Smith said Silk Road was only the beginning.

“The government, they can pat themselves on the back for Silk Road, but ultimately, it’s a hydra effect,” he said. “There’s a bunch more that are going to appear.”