Okay, so I'm not going to criticize Ulbricht's sentencing, because (a) it's hard to make a case to go easy on him, and (b) I don't really care enough about Ulbr

Okay, so I'm not going to criticize Ulbricht's sentencing, because (a) it's hard to make a case to go easy on him, and (b) I don't really care enough about Ulbricht in particular. But from a drug policy perspective, this language jumps out at me: > Ulbricht’s defense had argued the site reduced harm because it kept drug deals off the streets and allowed users to share information about drug safety. The transcript from the final day of court proceedings shows how Forrest categorically rejected that claim, outlining the social costs of drug use from an individual level to mass scale. “The social costs of drugs are manifest,” she said. “The user is only one part of the equation, that is where much of this harm reduction argument comes from and it is focused on the user. The user is one part of a massive, massive worldwide scheme of drug trafficking and if you sat where I sat you would see that the user is not the end… So, harm reduction focused on the user is missing the point.” First, let's make the assumption that all those users would have obtained the drugs some other way without the Silk Road. In that case, all that trafficking cost that happens before the seller lists the drug on the marketstill would have occurred. Silk Road was just as responsible for that cost as the end user[0]. Now, let's make the assumption that all those users would not have obtained the drugs some other way. That's basically saying that trafficking - which is an avoidable cost - is what makes the Silk Road so egregious. In that case, the right action is to address the drug trafficking trade itself. Again, Silk Road had only a small role in that. If we fixed the issues with drug trafficking, perhaps we would have a very different kind of marketplace than what Silk Road was (with a very different kind of person running it). In case it's not obvious by this point, I think the drug war is pretty backwards. I don't really have any sympathy for Ulbricht or the Silk Road, but I'm also not impressed by the judge's arguments in this sentencing. [0] this is not counting, of course, Ulbricht's own actions (e.g. attempting to hire an assassin).