(Brussels) – “The rate at which the drugs market is changing through the Internet will keep throwing bigger and bigger challenges to the fighting authorities, public healthcare agencies, and search and monitoring authorities”. The alert comes from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addictions (EMCDDA), a Lisbon-based EU agency that, with the help of about twenty international experts, conducted a wide survey of the subject. “In the last ten years – it says –, virtual markets have changed the way narcotics are spread and sold”. Most of the market, though, is still the traditional, “direct” one; but buying on standard websites or through the “invisible web” is rapidly increasing, with breakthrough searches, contacts, payments. Drugs bought online – of any kind, even the most harmful ones – are then delivered “home” by standard mail or couriers, without the police managing to stem such flows. In addition, the online market is most dangerous for young people. “Most types of drugs can now be bought online – the commissioner for internal affairs, Dimitri Avramopoulos, states –, with no physical evidence or any contact between buyers and sellers. The illegal market is evolving, so we are all called to upgrade our monitoring and fighting actions”, which involve national authorities and international agencies.