A real experience of buying drugs on the dark web with Bitcoin

My wife, Jackie, suffers from severe asthma, and I was recently forced to commit a crime in order to get her the medication she needs to stay alive, thanks to the ridiculous state of healthcare in America.

Jackie uses a maintenance inhaler twice a day for the rest of her life. Sometimes when her asthma symptoms are more severe, she also needs to use a short-acting (emergency) inhaler all night. If she stops taking these two medications, she will have an asthma attack, which may result in hospitalization or death.

Consider a person with severe asthma who would literally die very quickly without these inhalers. You would expect insurance companies to bring the price of these drugs down to the point where anyone can afford them. It would be highly unethical, or at least irresponsible, to charge extra for these life-saving drugs, right?

Wrong.

Many commonly used medical drugs (such as those for ADHD, anxiety, depression and many other conditions) are very cheap according to insurance companies' drug tiers, but inhalers, which are needed to treat asthma, are not included.

A few months ago, Jackie discovered that she was running low on her maintenance inhaler. We just got health insurance through the Kentucky Health Exchange, which isn't the most expensive, but it's not cheap either. Our bills are high every month, but we think it's worth it.

I should mention that Jackie picked out a cheap plan specifically for this.

Imagine that even with insurance, the inhaler she needed would cost her about $300…

Our financial situation was very tight at the time, and we could not afford the inhaler after paying for other necessities like utilities and groceries.

Then, Jackie came up with the idea of ​​buying inhalants on the dark web.

The so-called dark web is a network (part of the Internet) that is not included in search engines and cannot be accessed normally through common browsers. Some popular dark web sites are basically online black markets, where many (mostly illegal) goods can be purchased using the digital currency Bitcoin.

Until Jackie suggested it, I would never have thought to look for inhalants on the dark web.

Since then, I have found darknet markets fascinating and have spent a lot of time browsing these markets and the communities that have been built around them. Because of this fascination, I have gradually learned that these sellers who offer medicines do not charge you a high price. The medicines offered on the market include antibiotics, allergy pills, and most importantly, asthma inhalers.

Darknet markets have gained notoriety for the items sold on them. Ross Ulbricht, the man who ran the Silk Road darknet market, has been sentenced to life in prison. Before his trial, families of people who died from overdoses on Silk Road drugs wrote to the judge asking for justice.

However, I would argue that for people like me, these darknet markets exist for a positive reason, providing me with an affordable way to purchase the medications I need. While most of the drugs on the darknet are for recreational use, there are also some healthy medications out there. You can buy medications for depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, and even restless legs syndrome for far less than normal prices.

Regarding illegal drugs sold on the dark web, the voluntary testing group LSD Avengers conducted multiple tests, purchasing drugs on the Silk Road website and testing them in laboratories. "At least 56 samples (including ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, psychedelics, and other drugs) were tested in the laboratory, and 54 of them were found to be higher in purity than the level advertised on Silk Road," an FBI federal agent wrote in an affidavit.

There haven’t been many tests on drugs sold on the dark web, but based on limited research, these dark web markets are trustworthy, though they can’t compare to compliant pharmacies.

“When you buy some legitimate medicines in a brick-and-mortar pharmacy, the chances of adulteration or scams are close to zero, but on the dark web the risk is magnified,” Dr. Fernando Caudevilla, also known as DoctorX, said in an email.

Dr. Caudevilla, who helped investigate drugs on Silk Road and works for an NGO that tests drugs at music festivals, said buying prescription drugs on the dark web was not ideal, but for some users, there was no other choice.

"Generally speaking, the probability of counterfeiting is very low for commercial brands coming out of labs in Eastern Europe, India, or Brazil," he wrote. "Unlabeled powders, loose pills in small bags, new items with no response ... these are likely to be counterfeit. We haven't analyzed too many prescription drugs (about 20 a year), and 90% of them are genuine."

I had never looked for asthma inhalers on the dark web before Jackie suggested it. She didn't really know much about the dark web market other than what I told her, but one night she asked me out of the blue if she could buy an inhaler on the dark web. I opened a channel to the dark web through the Tor browser, and in a short while, I found a maintenance inhaler that we needed, and it was priced at $30 (including shipping).

Of course, I was a little skeptical at first. I wasn't surprised by the low price, because I knew that inhalers were very cheap abroad, and Jackie bought an emergency inhaler for 4 euros at a pharmacy in Milan when we were on our honeymoon last year. But how could I be sure that the supplier was selling the real thing?

The reality is that you can't guarantee that you will never be scammed, but most vendors on the dark web don't choose to scam you. To avoid fake products and scams, these markets have built-in review systems so that buyers can evaluate sellers and their goods and services. The number of sales on the market and the seller's rating can give you a direct indication of their credibility. In addition to market reviews, there are several large dark web market communities (such as the dark web market Reddit and DeepDotWeb) where buyers can discuss vendors and warn about related scams. These websites, as well as the dark web market's own forums, are good resources for researching vendors.

After some research, I discovered that the supplier I planned to contact had an excellent reputation. I decided to contact him and ask about the inhaler. He greeted me in a friendly and professional manner and assured me that he could get the maintenance inhaler in the dosage that Jackie needed. At this point, I was convinced, and the following story began.

Let's not forget that this type of transaction is illegal: I was buying some prescription drugs without a prescription, across borders, and without paying taxes. But I felt like my hands were being forced. I had no choice. Jackie's health was the most important thing, and I didn't particularly care what I would do for her health. Besides, I didn't think the DEA would waste time and resources on a guy buying asthma medication. In the heat of the moment, I actually bought some things on these websites.

Prior to this, I had done some research on how to complete an order on the dark web safely and anonymously. Despite all this preparation, I was still feeling a bit anxious. I purchased some Bitcoins in person through a website called LocalBitcoins, using cash from a nice, normal person. Using cash allowed me to avoid exposing my identity when using a credit card online. He sent the Bitcoins to a pre-set wallet that was not linked to my real identity. To further maintain my anonymity, I decided to use the Tails operating system, which is a privacy-focused OS that does not access your computer's hard drive or store any information about your session. After installing Tails on my laptop, I used a public Wi-Fi network and anonymously accessed my Bitcoin wallet through the Tor browser to transfer the digital currency to the dark web market. Once I was done, my anxiety was gone and I was excited about the process I was going through.

The only difference is the price, which is actually what causes crime.

When the bitcoins arrived in my darknet market account, I felt like a dumb villain. I finally prepared the order, and the rest was easy. I browsed the list of asthma inhalers, selected the quantity and shipping method from the drop-down list, and clicked the "Buy" button. This required me to provide my delivery information. I used PGP software to encrypt my name and address so that only the supplier could decrypt them. Just like that, the order was completed. The next day, the supplier shipped the drugs, and we saved a lot of money.

The only problem was that the drugs were shipped from other countries, and Jackie had to wait several weeks before she got the drugs she needed.

While she waits, Jackie has to plan how to use her remaining asthma medication. One option is to use rescue medication instead of her maintenance inhaler, but overuse of rescue medication is bad for the heart and could put her in the hospital. To avoid using her maintenance inhaler, Jackie would have to use the rescue medication 10-20 times a day. In contrast, she would only need to use her maintenance medication 0-2 times a day.

Another option is to use a machine called a nebulizer, which vaporizes asthma medication so it can be inhaled into the lungs. The entire process of setting up and using it takes 15 minutes, and the machine itself is extremely loud. We couldn't watch TV or listen to music while it was running. My dog ​​would hide away when he saw it running, and Jackie compared it to an iron lung. Aside from the manageable disadvantage of inconvenience, the side effect of the nebulizer machine is that Jackie's body will visibly shake after using it, just like someone experiencing a high fever and feeling cold. After using it, Jackie couldn't turn over for several minutes, and it also caused anxiety.

Neither of these approaches is ideal, but they can be used to sustain a situation for a while.

A few weeks later, the asthma inhalers finally arrived intact. They were in a completely unremarkable cardboard box. The only reason we knew it was an inhaler was because of the return address written on it. After some effort, I finally opened the inhaler inside the cardboard box. To be honest, I thought it would be easy to get through customs because the inhaler itself was completely legal and no different from what you buy at your local pharmacy. The only difference was the price, and in fact, this is what caused the crime.

Luckily, Jackie was able to find a way to keep her inhaler running without having to rob a bank or break the law, thanks to the doctors who helped her, not our insurance company. What do you think of healthcare in America? I hope we can all agree that life-saving medications should be affordable. I have a pretty good paying job and we both have good health insurance. I shouldn't have to commit a crime to buy my wife's medications, and there are many people with severe asthma who are in worse financial situations than we are, but still don't qualify for Medicaid. Most of these people have never heard of darknet markets and certainly don't know how to use them. So, what can they do?

When these life-saving drugs are out of reach for those who desperately need them, something needs to change. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening. All I know is that healthcare in this country is broken, and until it's fixed, I guess the existence of darknet markets might not be such a bad thing.

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