An examination of harm reduction strategies in Oxycodone and Adderall buyer feedback on AlphaBay

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Kenji Logie,Katheryne Pugliese,Alexis Acevedo
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12652

DOI: ./-. 

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

CYBERCRIME AND CYBERSECURITY

An examination of harm reduction strategies in

Oxycodone and Adderall buyer feedback on

AlphaBay

Kenji Logie Katheryne Pugliese Alexis Acevedo

Department of Criminal Justice, John Jay

College of Criminal Justice, New York,

New York,USA

Correspondence

Kenji Logie, John Jay College of Criminal

Justice,  Westth Steet, New York,

NY , USA.

Email: klogie@jjay.cuny.edu

Funding information

National Institute of Justice, Grant/Award

Number: -R-CX-

Abstract

Research summary: Darknet marketplaces (DNMs)

are global digital marketplaces used primarily to buy

and sell illicit drugs online. High rates of adulter-

ated substances have contributed to the creation of

harm reduction policies by DNM administrators to

address growing rates of overdoseworldwide. This paper

explores the extent to which harm reduction occurs in

buyer feedback of Adderall and Oxycodone purchased

on AlphaBay and how these comments are impacted

by AlphaBay’s administrator-led “harm reduction” pol-

icy. This study finds that harm reduction strategies are

present in buyer feedback of Oxycodone and Adderall

pills, but AlphaBay’s policy has very little impact on

the preexisting harm reduction communication within

buyer feedback.

Policy implications: International policy proposals

have placed emphasis on addressing the overdose crisis

through harm reduction programs that provide people

who use drugs with the necessary services and resources

to buy and use drugs safely. There have been very few

proposals that have considered how these programs can

address the unique setting of buying and using drugs

purchased on DNMs. Communication occurring among

DNM buyers reveals how harm reduction strategies are

being employed by users purchasing drugs from DNMs.

Criminology & Public Policy. ;:–. ©  American Society of Criminology. 695wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp

696 LOGIE  .

In particular, these findings offer insight into the shared

experiences of drug buyers in anonymous settings and

the strategies they are using to protect one another from

overdose and other unwanted side effects often caused

by adulterated substances. Understanding these strate-

gies highlights the ways in which street-based harm

reduction programs can extend their services to online

environments to assist buyers with making safe and

informed decisions when using substances purchased

online.

KEYWORDS

Adderall, darknet, drug policy, harm reduction, oxycodone

1 INTRODUCTION

A darknet marketplace (DNM) is a marketplace that allows for the private sale and purchase of

products by “host[ing] multiple sellers or ‘vendors’,provid[ing] participants with anonymity via its

location on the hidden web and use of cryptocurrencies for payment, and aggregates and displays

customer feedback ratings and comments” (Barratt & Aldridge, , p. ). Although DNMs pro-

vide a wide variety of products, drugs are the majority of listings (Broadhurst& Ball, ; Cunliffe

et al., ; Maras et al., ; Stringham et al., ). Syntheticopioids, such as hydrocodone and

fentanyl, have grown substantially in both street-based and online markets due to their demand,

affordability,and potency (Miller, ). The increased accessibility to these stronger,more afford-

able substances has led to a steady increase in drug dependency and overdoses around the world,

most concentrated in the United States (Okie, ). As of , the global standardized rate of

opioid dependency is  people per , with the highest rates of opioid dependence in the

United States nearly triple this, at , per , people (Degenhardt et al., ). These high

rates of opioid dependency are reflected in increases of overdose, which have continued to grow

since the COVID- pandemic (Spencer et al., ). In , over , individuals died from

drug-related overdoses in the United States, a significant increase since the estimated ,drug-

related overdoses in  (Ahmad et al., ; Spencer et al., ). Research suggests that % of

overdoses in the United States are attributed to synthetic opioids (Spenceret al., ). Conse-

quently, policy makersare scrambling to address the growing presence of synthetic opioids in the

drug market.

Initiatives to police drug markets have shown to be challenging and have led to over-

criminalization and unintended health consequences for people who use drugs (PWUD) (Baker

et al., ; Zhang et al., ). Other policy strategies have sought to reduce demand for drugs

through increasing funding to treatment programs like opioid agonist treatment (OAT), which

provide PWUD with alternative substances like methadone to lessen withdrawal symptoms and

cravings (Nielsen et al., ). Despite the supporting evidence for these types of initiatives (Santo

et al., ), there are manybarriers to effectively implementing OAT programs, which has compli-

cated the rollout of these programs (National Academiesof Sciences et al., ). These challeng es

LOGIE  . 697

have led to an increased call for education on the current drug market and protection against

overdose that can allow for PWUD to use drugs safely without the immediate need for treatment.

Harm reduction policies aim to address the health-related harms for PWUD without reducing

or eradicating drug consumption (Marlatt, ). This agenda operates under the public health

model by surveilling drug usage, understanding the illicit market, and supporting one’s man-

agement of one’s own health. The knowledge and expansion of these services allow for increased

communication between PWUD, who areoften isolated due to criminalization and stigma toward

illicit drug use (Friedman et al., ; Muncan et al., ). Several harm reduction initiatives

have been developed to address overdose and fentanyl monitoring at the street level such as an

expansion of naloxone access and the installation of overdose prevention vendingmachines (ABC

 Eyewitness News, ; Crumpler, ; Mulvhill, ; New York State Office of Addiction

Services and Supports, ), the implementation of overdose prevention centers (OnPoint NYC,

), the decriminalization of drug use (Heano, ;Kary,; Westervelt,), and the instal-

lation of drug testing centers (Barratt & Measham, ; Gozdzialski et al., ; Larnder et al.,

; Wallace et al., , ,). Given the number of harm reduction-related policies and

initiatives, it is surprising that only a small number of research articles have examined drug test-

ing and monitoring on DNMs to inform public health policy (Caudevilla et al., ;Ginéetal.,

; Quintana et al., ; Van Der Gouwe et al., ). Most harm reduction research focusing

on darknet spaces have been observational studies focusing broadly on the reception of specific

initiatives rather than providing policy recommendations based on the needs of DNM users (Ban-

croft, ; Davitadze et al., ; Masson & Bancroft, ; Vale Pires et al., ; Rolando &

Beccaria, ).

AlphaBay was one of the most popular DNMs over the last decade. The marketplace had two

administrators: “Alpha”from – and “DeSnake” from–. During his leader ship,

“Alpha”implemented several harm reduction strategies to address the growing number of over-

dose deaths, such as incentivizing vendors to provide naloxone, an overdose reversal medication,

to customers in exchange for waiving the vendor bond fee to sell on the DNM (Bancroft, ;

Gilbert & Dasgupta, ). Additionally,AlphaBay and the other DNMs have placed banson fen-

tanyl and other dangerous chemical mixtures to reduceunwanted attention from law enforcement

(Gilbert & Dasgupta, ; see Supplementary Appendix B). In August , “DeSnake,” the sec-

ond administrator of AlphaBay,implemented a “harm reduction” policy that required vendors to

be transparent about the content of their products by disclosing all ingredients, including adulter-

ants, in their product description. Recent studies have found that some DNM vendors use covert

terms to inform buyers about adulterants in their products, whereas predatory vendors mayomit

potentially dangerous adulterants from their product title or description, highlighting the impor-

tance of vendor transparency (M. Maras, Logie et al., ; M.-H. Maras,Arsovska et al., ). To

ensure that vendors followed these requirements, AlphaBayhired drug checkers to randomly pur-

chase and test drugs being sold by vendors to confirm that the products contained the substances

that were being marketed. Vendorsfound to be selling mislabeled products could be permanently

banned from the marketplace by the site administrator.

Researchers have highlighted the benefits of harm reduction-related interventions for DNM

users. Most of these studies have explored how harm reduction strategies can be implemented

by external parties like nonprofit organizations or trained medical specialists who are able to

access darknet forums to offer advice to potential users (Davey et al., ; Davitadze et al.,

; Masson & Bancroft, ; Móró & Rácz, ; Vale Pires et al., ; Rolando & Beccaria,

;Sarkeretal.,). Although these findings have generated promising results on the use of

harm reduction programs in forums, little research has explored the harm reduction knowledge