A website that rates the relative quality of different batches of ecstasy is proving to be very popular with users of the drug in this city. While the site's stated intention is to aid the process of harm minimization, medical authorities are appalled by it.

It doesn't surprise me that this site gets a lot of traffic from Perth. There are obviously a lot of users here. And they often turn to the internet to find drug related information.

I've learned this from the traffic stats to this site. A while back I wrote a blog post about drug use in Perth. And since then I've had a constant flow of Google traffic to it. People sometimes arrive via searches that reveal a curiosity about how and where to find drugs like meth and DMT here. And if you look at the post in question you'll see that the two comments that are there clearly come from people who either use the drugs mentioned, or at least condone their use.

At first this surprised me because it seemed so brazen. I thought, why are people so open about their intentions? Google records all our searches, after all. Constantly typing in such searches means you're leaving a potential trail of evidence that could one day be used against you. (I know that currently there are privacy regulations regarding search data. But laws change. And you'd expect that this possibility might weigh on your mind a bit if you were engaging in illegal activity!)

But clearly these issues don't worry these people. They've probably been using these illicit drugs for years on end with complete impunity, so the thought of being sprung in cyberspace doesn't bother them.

It just goes to show how widespread and accepted illicit drug use is in this country -- not to mention Googling!