Customers of fast food are not the only ones who sit at home and order pizza, fried chicken and burgers. There are some people who place orders for illegal drugs at home on the Internet and receive the consignment at their doors! This is the practice of buying illegal drugs online, without any risk or haggling over the price.
Websites which sell different kinds of harmful drugs are active in cyberspace for several years and attract naïve customers. Cyber police has discovered and closed some of the sites; however traffickers resurface and start distribution of narcotics in virtual space again, said Hamid Sarami, general director of the Research and Training Center for Combating Drugs. “At present, 51 Persian-language websites used to attract customers under the guise of scientific websites have been identified; but the identification of these websites is not the end of online and anonymous drug traffickers,” Alef News Agency reports.
When we search keywords of “purchase and sale of drugs” on the Internet, we are able to access some of the websites and filter them. There are websites also with instructions in making different kinds of drugs and ingredients used in methamphetamines.
Most of the websites have been blocked and filtered but thanks to anti-filter software they are still accessible to customers. “The number of active websites is very high,” warns Farid Barati Sadeh, former deputy for drug prevention at the State Welfare Organization’s (SWO).
Modern Marketing
Online drug sales can bring drug traffickers to the people’s homes; wherever there is a computer and a logged user, drug traffickers can enter. The place can be an adolescent’s room or even an office; therefore no place is safe anymore.
“When addiction targets all social groups and even educated sections, it is not surprising that sale methods of drugs have become modern and online,” Sadeh said.
With the growth of these virtual networks, “people can receive any kind of drug easier than a sandwich, at their doorstep.”
The ease of access to drugs is the result of the lucrative trafficking market and new marketing methods used by the mafia in this field; therefore closing the websites and virtual stores through filters is only a temporary measure.
“Instead we should focus on raising people’s awareness about the dangers of drugs abuse. Of course it will be time-consuming, but and effective method,” he added.
