BUYING DRUGS ONLINE is easier than you think. Canada Post will even deliver them.

The CBC published a story Tuesday about how an Ontario man bought cocaine from a website and received it in the mail several days later, courtesy of our federal postal service.

He learned about the website (which CBC did not name) from an Instagram ad.

“So you have this ad, it looks professional. You go on the website and it’s very easy. It's like on Amazon. You have many drugs, and you have cocaine,” the man said, who spoke to CBC under the pseudonym “John.”

“I was like, it's unbelievable to see this on social media.”

It just so happens Smalltown Graffiti has been conducting its own investigation into a similar topic for months.

We first explored a now-defunct website called www.canadamushrooms.shop, which in addition to an array of psilocybin mushrooms also advertised a number of illegal psychedelic drugs such as ketamine, LSD, and MDMA (also known as molly or ecstasy).

The website further showcased a number of prescription ED meds like 50mg tablets of Viagra and 20mg tablets of “Party Hard” Cialis, each starting at around $3/pill.

To test the customer experience, we bought 3.5 grams of Alacabenzi Magic Mushrooms for $30. Shipping was an additional $15.99, but that cost was mostly offset by a first-time customer coupon that reduced our total by $9.00. After tax (yes, we paid sales tax on illegal drugs), we paid $38.04 for the shrooms.

But the website didn’t accept debit or credit—just Interac E-Transfer.

In an email sent after our purchase, the company carefully instructed us NOT to mention anything about the drugs in our E-Transfer. Their exact words were:

“PLEASE put the recipient name as ‘Canada Payment,’ NOT ‘Canada Mushrooms’ or anything related to Shrooms, DMT, Cannabis, etc. Your etransfer WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED if anything related to cannabis, shrooms, dmt is written in the name. Thank you for understanding.”

We followed their instructions to a tee. Five days later, the drugs arrived in a Canada Post package with a cryptic return address:

Synergy Marketing Agency LTD.

#30-1146 Pacific Blvd.

Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2XY

No business under that name is listed at the given address, but there is a Vancouver-based agency called Synergy Marketing Group that advertises itself on Instagram as a real estate business specializing in “projects marketing, sales services & development consultancy.”

A link on their Instagram page titled synergymarketinggroup.ca redirects to another website called carolinehong.com. Caroline Hong describes herself on the website as “one of Vancouver’s most experienced real estate professionals, with over two decades years [sic] in the luxury housing market in British Columbia and Asia.”

Smalltown Graffiti bought more magic mushrooms from another website called Big Green Train (BGT), which advertises itself as a same-day cannabis delivery service in Toronto and the GTA.

Unlike the previous website, BGT required ID verification prior to purchase. The rest of the process was similar to Canada Mushrooms: no debit or credit, just E-Transfer.

The shrooms arrived less than four hours after our money transfer was processed.

A man in a silver Honda Civic pulled up beside the curb and handed us a manila envelope with no return address listed. He thanked us for our business and said they were running a BOGO deal on cannabis shatter, if we were interested.

He drove off and we opened the manila envelope. Inside were the shrooms and a tiny ziploc bag containing four buds of pot: a freebie courtesy of the boys at Big Green Train.

“How did we do?” they asked in an automated email sent just minutes later. “We would love if you could help us and other customers by reviewing products that you recently purchased. It only takes a minute and it would really help others.”

According to Health Canada, psychedelics are Canadians’ favourite illegal substance, followed by cocaine (or crack) and ecstasy.

In a 2023 survey, the government found that youth and adults were equally as likely to have used psychedelics in their lifetime. But they also found that youth were “more than twice as likely to have used psychedelics in the past 12 months than adults.”

The federal government acknowledges how easy it is to purchase illegal drugs online, but cautions against doing so.

“A simple internet search will turn up hundreds of websites that sell drugs,” says Health Canada.

“Buying drugs from illegitimate sellers… may pose serious health risks. You have no way of knowing where these companies are located, where they get their drugs from, what's in their drugs, (and) how to reach them if there's a problem.”

WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING?

🇨🇦🇺🇸 A B.C. woman has been charged with illegally entering the United States carrying a weed pen and kicking a female border agent in the face when she tried to detain her.

💰️ The Alcohol and Gambling Commission of Ontario (AGCO) is fining FanDuel sportsbook $350,000 for allegedly failing to identify and report suspicious betting activity on international table tennis matches in 2024.

🎱 A London man was arrested this week for allegedly hitting a waiter with a pool ball after being told he could not leave a restaurant with his drink.