‘IT HAS THE capacity to change everything – the way we work, the way we learn and play, even, maybe, the way we sleep or have sex,’ wrote British entrepreneur and author Matt Symonds of his prediction for the internet in The Economist in 1999. ‘Within a few years, the internet will turn business upside down. Be prepared – or die.’

Since then, there has been a relentless trend of customers taking their business online, away from bricks and mortar, but few would have imagined that the corner drug dealer was at risk of the same fate. Yet 2011 saw the first mass-marketed point-and-click illegal drugs bazaar, where people could pop marijuana, ecstasy or cocaine into a basket as easily as if they were shopping on Amazon. Now, according to the Global Drug Survey, the number of people buying drugs online is increasing exponentially each year.