Social apps drugs danger
MESSAGING and social apps Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter have become the new shopfront for drugs, attracting younger and younger users buying and selling illicit substances.
Colourful posts on the apps openly advertise a plethora of drugs, using slang words or coded emojis, which are easily searchable but avoid platform censorship.
An investigation by News Corp found more than a dozen sites across the three apps offering everything from magic mushrooms to marijuana, cocaine, MDMA, oxycodone, Xanax and LSD to customers in all major cities around the country.
Experts are warning the use of social media apps to sell drugs is becoming increasingly popular because the drugs can be bought any time and delivered straight to your door – as easily as ordering a pizza.
“The ease of access to any of the drugs is incredible,” says Paul Dillon, a director and founder of Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia.
Mr Dillon, who has been involved in drug and alcohol research for more than 25 years, said the recent rise of the emoji, used as a secret drug language, was significant.
He said that in one case, a 15-year-old girl was caught drug dealing from a train station platform, after advertising her goods online. She had been doing it for about 18 months and her parents had no idea.
Her mother told police that while she monitored her daughter’s social media, she had no clue the emojis she used were for drug deals.
“Most of the social media platforms have tried to restrict it (drug dealing) but smart people always find a way around it,” Mr Dillon said.
Snapchat has announced it is using new AI in its drug detection systems and has stepped up partnerships with police after a rash of drug-related deaths among school aged youth in the United States. Instagram and Twitter have been contacted for comment.
A spokesman for Meta, which oversees Instagram, said the platform had already removed a number of accounts advertising drugs that had been referred to them by News Corp.
“Any attempts to sell, trade or promote the use of nonmedical or pharmaceutical drugs is a clear violation of our policies. We take action if we detect or are made aware of anyone attempting to circumvent this policy,” the spokesman said.
Despite attempts to fight it, digital drug distribution is on the rise and it works by using a combination of the messaging apps with a dark-net backend.
A submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Law Enforcement inquiry into the impact of illicit drugs being traded online noted “while the value and quality of illicit drugs traded online is currently small relative to the overall market, it is growing at a rapid and troubling rate.”
How it works in many cases is that buyers are instructed to move from public facing apps to encrypted apps, such as Telegram, Wikr or Discord, to seal the deal and arrange deliveries.
An international study, #Drugsforsale, said smartphone-enabled apps were seen as a valuable intermediary option between cryptomarkets and street dealing with secure features that don’t need technical expertise like using the dark net.
In June, Queensland Police conducted 11 raids as part of a months-long covert operation known as Operation Uniform Riding, targeting drug trafficking via a social media platform called Mewe.
Organised Crime Gangs Group Commander, Detective Superintendent Brendan Smith said the operation proved that the perceived anonymous nature of social media platforms was a myth.
“Offenders need to know that their customer could be a law enforcement officer,” he said.
Detectives had infiltrated social media platforms including Mewe posing as customers and purchased various quantities of cannabis, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamine, magic mushrooms and sweets infused with THC. They charged 12 men and women aged from 22 to 49 with a multitude of offences.