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we didn't smoke it
What did RTÉ do with the lump of hash they ordered on Prime Time?
Richard Downes ordered drugs in a murky corner of the internet as part of a report shown last night.
THERE WAS A pretty flashy examination of the ‘dark net’ on Prime Time last night — that shady part of the internet where drugs are sold, weapons are purchased and all manner of other nefarious things happen.
It’s up on the RTÉ Player for the next three weeks, if you’re interested, and is well worth a look.
During the course of the package — shot around the vaults of CHQ in Dublin’s IFSC, and in a variety of shabby looking basement office spaces for a bit of extra ‘murkiness’ — presenter Richard Downes purchased a sizeable enough lump of cannabis.
Why?
Well — journalism, of course… What better way to prove that an online drug dealer is in fact a drug dealer than, well, buying some drugs?
RTÉ
“We appear to have got what we paid for,” Downes told viewers, after cutting open an air-mailed package and giving the product a cursory sniff…
RTÉ
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It got some of us wondering though…
Not that we’d ever suspected them anything — an RTÉ spokesperson confirmed this afternoon that the product was destroyed in a controlled manner, in keeping with programme guidelines.
Generally, she explained, a graphic would have been added to explain that to viewers, but programme-makers were in a hurry to get the package finished and on the air.
So, no — no-one smoked it, if that’s what you were wondering… Again, the thought never crossed our minds.
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