Moscow Minor

How the metropolitan drug market works: the investigation of "iodine"

The times when in Moscow it was possible to buy drugs on the street for a long time - now prohibited substances are sold on the Internet and with the help of "bookmarks", and drug consumers and sellers do not meet at all. Some dealers work through electronic wallets, others prefer to work only with bitcoins more protected from monitoring. Journalist Alexei Kovalev in the Yoda investigation tells how the Moscow drug market works, whether the euro course affects the cost of drugs in Moscow and how activists help drug addicts with free syringes.

“Bookmark” is a bag of drugs hidden somewhere in a secluded place, the whereabouts of which are known only to the seller and the buyer. In Moscow, heroin is still distributed, but recently the most popular drugs have become synthetic, known as Spice and Salt. Cocaine is also in demand, the cost of which over the past five years has increased by more than two times. But, the “iodine” notes, the cost of marijuana, which can be grown in country conditions, has practically not changed.

Now in Moscow, nothing similar to the mid-1990s-early 2000s, when heroin was sold almost openly, large “points” of the RUDN hostels were known throughout the city and suburb, and overdose, illnesses, and so on, whole school classes, student dormitories, prison chambers and barracks. Nevertheless, heroin in Moscow is quite accessible [...], albeit much worst compared to the past decade.

Iodine