HydraStats: generalized data and charts about Hydra in Belarus
Hydra is a dark net platform that was launched in 2015. It is considered to be the largest drug trading platform in the world. Hydra’s revenue for 2019 was around 50 million dollars. More than 2.5 million users are registered on the website.
HydraStats is a project that presents generalized data and charts about Hydra in Belarus. The website does not promote the use of controlled psychoactive substances.
Drug prices
On the platform, payments are made in Bitcoin from a personal Hydra-managed wallet. Immediately after payment for an instant offer the user gets coordinates of the stash and instructions to find it.
Only instant offers are taken into account by HydraStats. Numbers are calculated for subcategories that allow reliable representation of drug prices in Belarus. Offer quantities to count can be restricted to a personal use amount. Median, Mean and Min averaging functions are available.
Supply structure
Hydra splits products into 24 categories, 10 of which include psychoactive substances. These categories are: stimulants, psychedelics, “euphorics”, cannabis, cannabinoids, opioids, dissociatives, entheogens, ecstasy and pharmacy drugs. Essentially, there are 85 subcategories (e.g. hashish, mephedrone powder, NBOMe) of drug-related products.
The market provides a variety of choice for cannabis, LSD, ecstasy, MDMA, amphetamine, mephedrone and α-PVP. Other substances have little supply and do not hold constant presence on the marketplace.
Customer reviews
Reviews are playing a major role in the black market trade. The only way to choose a store and a product is to check other customers’ reviews.
Every review on Hydra comes with an overall rating score from 0 to 10. Most of the ratings are positive, although a substantial share of reviews report failure to find a stash after payment.
Every day around 300 new reviews are added in Belarus.
Breakdown by city
Minsk occupies 65% of the market by the number of instant offers. Other cities with a large amount of offers are Brest (7%), Viciebsk (6%), Homiel (4%), Hrodna (3%), Mahiloŭ (3%) and Babrujsk (2%). In total, there are 29 Belarusian cities present on Hydra.
On HydraStats, breakdown by city is available for exploring prices, supply and the number of reviews.
Is drug-free world achievable?
Concerns with drug abuse have a long history, and prohibition — the banning of drug production, sale, possession, and use — has been a popular policy response from the start.
After more than 100 years of international prohibition policy, the drug market is alive and well, though underground. The rhetoric calling for the elimination of drugs from society has not been translated into successful policy. Given this, many have argued that the complete removal of drugs from society is simply unachievable.
Few countries offer perspectives on alternatives to prohibition, including decriminalization and legalization of other drugs in addition to cannabis. These policies have led to a decrease in drug overdose deaths and violent crimes. We should not ignore these facts.
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