By Harry Sturman
Meet Joe*, a 32-year old small-time weed seller and distiller who operates through the deep web. Joe has carved out a niche – a profitable niche – for himself as a reliable and discreet supplier of THC products to his customers.
While the deepweb has a reputation for being a haven of the internet’s less ‘savoury’ of illegal activities, Joe insists that everything he does is ethical. “I have a network of trusted suppliers who provide me with the weed that I sell, and from there I take care in distilling it and infusing it so I can offer things like carts, wax, and edibles,” says Joe.
Joe was originally only looking to make a small amount of money but found that his experience with the deep web allowed him to grow his customer base faster than expected. “I was already familiar with the deepweb and how it worked, so it was a natural fit for me,” he says. “I had only distilled for myself before, but I knew I was good at it and my customer base grew pretty quickly after a few good reviews.”
The average internet user knows nothing of the deep web or how it works. Joe explains that it’s not as complicated as it might seem. “I think most people are put off by all the security measures, they’re not used to having control over their own information,” he says.
Joe sells across multiple markets. “It’s totally necessary for us to have so many markets, they’re always going down, seized by government agencies, or the admins just slip on security,” he says.
“Security is the biggest factor really, from the VPN provider to the market admins to the sellers to the buyers, it’s all about keeping the data secure.”
Though the running of Joe’s online business isn’t all without trouble. “You can do everything to secure the digital sides of things; the products still have to physically travel to their destination,” he says. “Products might get lost in delivery, mixed up, or never sent at all. This comes right back to me and I have to find a way to remedy it.”
Due to the legality of Joe’s product ,the usual avenues of dispute aren’t open. “The security measures get in the way of the physical side of the business. It’s not smart to put a return address onto our packages, so if an address is wrong in any way it most likely will never make it to the buyer, and we really have no way of knowing if it did or didn’t get there,” he says.
Joe feels this is the only real obstacle to operating like any other, totally legal, online business.
“When I want to release a new product I have to take all the necessary steps,” he says. “I perfect the product, I work out how to market it, I make sure I use the best sized and most secure packaging, I tally the costs and I work out my margins. I have to work as hard as anybody that runs a business, I’m just not given any of the support or the infrastructure to continue growing.”
To Joe, that’s the reason other vendors drop out of the business, online at least. “We can each only go so far, and there’s always that chance that something worse than a lost package happens, the people running these markets and the vendors on them do get raided – they get caught out,” he says.
“And that’s when doubts arise, with the police hovering. What’s the point in running a business that can’t grow, and can’t be seen as legitimate?”
Joe is also part of the growing section of British society calling for the legalisation of cannabis. “What I sell doesn’t hurt anybody,” he says, with a shrug, “and if there were less of a clampdown on weed’s recreational use all of these vendors could scale up their production. If they were allowed to create genuine plants and factories and stores then the government could tax them all, and the workers, and the selling of the product.”
One of the bottlenecks of deep web trading is the reliance on cryptocurrencies, something Joe is sceptical of. “The currencies we trade in change depending on the marketplace but for the most part they’re Bitcoin and Ripple,” he adds. “Of course I have no issue with this while what I’m doing is still illegal, but cryptocurrency holdings mean I can sell a product in the evening and by the morning I’ve lost a not insignificant amount of value on the coin.
“Also, I think a lot of normal people struggle with the idea of buying cryptocurrencies. I mean how and why, it scares people and it makes the transaction feel illegitimate and shady, I’m sure it stops some people from buying at least.”
Despite the worries over the appearance of security and legitimacy from vendors such as Joe, or “WeedStarTHC” there can appear to be a sort of wild west of sellers across the markets of the deep web.
Some vendors will even “Exit scam”, this is to say the vendor will be quitting the business, at least under their current name, whilst still taking orders, of which they do not plan to fulfil. This is exactly what deep web users have been accusing WeedStarTHC of in the time between our interview and the writing of this feature.
Despite, or perhaps due to, his own worries Joe has left the market, in the most illegitimate of fashions.
- Joe’s name has been changed to protect his identity.
