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Drugs and the Darknet: Challenges and Opportunities

  • When
  • January 25, 2018
    1:00–8:00 p.m. (EST)
  • Where
  • Open Society Foundations–New York
    224 West 57th Street
    New York, NY 10019
    United States of America
  • Speakers
  • Daniel Wolfe, Michael Gilbert, and Nabarun Dasgupta
Drugs and the Darknet: Challenges and Opportunities (January 25, 2018)

Darknet markets, or “cryptomarkets,” are changing the way that people buy, sell, use, and make drugs around the world. These anonymous online markets are democratizing access to global drug supply chains, introducing new challenges and opportunities for supporting the health of people who use the products that flow through them.

This event explored technologies, practices, opportunities, and challenges emerging from cryptomarkets. It presented a framework for understanding the role of cryptomarkets in global drug supply chains and how principles of harm reduction manifest in discourse and practice within them. We examined product innovations seen within cryptomarkets to reduce the health harms related to illicit substances purchased online, explore implications of recent interdiction events, and frame guidelines for the ethical practice of harm reduction service and research in this space.

Speakers

  • Daniel Wolfe

    Moderator

    Until December 2021, Daniel Wolfe was director of the International Harm Reduction Development Program at the Open Society Foundations.

  • Michael Gilbert

    Speaker

    Michael Gilbert, MPH, is a public health technologist with a specialization in epidemiology and harm reduction.

  • Nabarun Dasgupta

    Speaker

    Nabarun Dasgupta, MPH, PhD, is an epidemiologist studying the medical and nonmedical use of prescription opioids and heroin at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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