“Illegal Drug Sales in the Mirror of the Dark Web Marketplace”, 2021-10-20 (; backlinks):
Analysis of the deep internet sales of drugs helps assess the situation with the illegal drug supply in the regions of Russia.
Data on deep internet sales of drugs should not substitute the other sources of data.
The objective of this study was to get estimates for the Russian drug market using data collected at dark net market Hydra, get the amounts of drugs offered, the relative frequency of offers, and the regional distribution of the market activities.
Data: …We use two types of data: (1) Deep Web Black Market data; (2) Official Russian statistical indicators related to drug use.
Results: Using the estimates of sales for the drug classes in grams by region (per 100,000 population), we mapped the data and found that there is a correlation with the registered drug users and drug-related deaths. There is no Hydra sales of opiates in some regions indicating that older supply channels are still active. Total drug sales and offers championed by cannabis, opiates/opioids, cocaine, amphetamines and the other drugs in smaller amounts. There is a statistically-significant correlation between the supply of opiates in regions of Russia and the official incidence of fatal drug poisoning (r = 0.41; p = 0.003), and the number of HIV positive injected drug users (r = 0.47; p = 0.002).
[Keywords: amphetamine, cocaine, epidemiology, drug toxicity, HIV seropositivity, Hydra, Internet, Russia, safety, software, cannabis, marijuana, drug usage, substance use disorders, illicit drugs, opiates, opioids, correlation studies, descriptive statistics, maps]