An Insight Into Who Is Really Buying Legal Highs Online

2 minute read

Posted by: DeepDotWeb

May 2, 2015

Guest Post – The spotlight looming over legal highs doesn’t seem to be going away. The world has become obsessed with the latest in the legal highs world and the on-going battle to get these substances banned.

If you don’t already know, confiscated drugs are tested by government experts and if they are believed to be dangerous, the substances are banned individually. Some manufacturers tweak ingredients to make a new drug with similar effects, but isn’t illegal. On Friday April 10^th the government announced a temporary banning order on ethylphenidate and related products.

The temporary Class Drug Order (TCDO) makes the following compounds illegal to supply, import or export:

3,4-Dichloromethylphenidate (3,4-DCMP)
Ethylphenidate
Isopropylphenidate (IPP or IPPD)
Methylnaphthidate (HDMP-28)
Propylphenidate

We’ve all seen the headlines:

“MPs Putting Lives at Risk over Legal Highs”

“Expert warns: ‘Legal highs’ are more dangerous than illegal drugs”

There’s a large market out there for people seeking legal highs and as a result, online headshops are making strong profits selling these substances. They can vouch that customer numbers are definitely not going down; in fact they appear to be on the up.

With all this negative press and health warnings, the question people may be asking is who is still buying this stuff and where from?

ICE Headshop is one of the largest online headshops in the UK, selling a wide range of products to thousands of customers every single month. They were kind enough to share their sales data so we can get a deeper insight into their customer base.

Many assume it’s the naive and rebellious teenagers that are buying legal highs online. However, it would seem this is not necessarily the case. In fact the 25-34 year old age bracket seems to enjoy getting high that bit more. This will probably come as a surprise to many, but users aged 45+ make up over 20% of total website traffic.

As you can see, this is a male dominated market. Other data also shows that up to 10% of customers are avid lovers of movies, TV and technology, which is unsurprising with the nature of some of the products.