4 ms·

I am often critical of Nick Bilton's opinions, but he is not a "drug war fanboy" by any stretch of the imagination; nor does he have a "fundamentalist prohibiti

I am often critical of Nick Bilton's opinions, but he is not a "drug war fanboy" by any stretch of the imagination; nor does he have a "fundamentalist prohibitionist ideology." If Silk Road did not facilitate the sale of drugs at all, but still enabled the sale of guns, murder for hire, poison, weapons, child porn, would anyone defend it, at all?

yock 9y ago
I'd defend the sale of anything which doesn't inherently infringe on the rights of others. A couple of the items on your list fit that category, others don't. The issue here is what reasoning we use to prohibit a thing, and when those reasons extend to attempting to prevent harms we tend to have problems.
zkms 9y ago
The production or use of {murder-for-hire, weapons, poisons, child abuse imagery} all involve grave and inherent harm -- regardless of the laws that regulate/prohibit them. The harm that drug use/manufacture causes is a lot more a function of the relevant policies/laws than the actual chemicals themselves. Indeed, most of the harm from illicit drug use comes from: 1. dose/concentration uncertainty or potential contamination with higher-potency drugs -- like unexpected fentanyl inside heroin 2. contamination with unwanted or dangerous chemicals (from manufacturing / distribution processes) -- such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP or cutting agents 3. Poly-drug use: combining any two of {opioids, benzos, alcohol} to exploit synergistic effects -- which can easily result in respiratory depression 4. Designer drugs / research chemicals -- the result of someone trying to make a drug that works on a given neurobiological target but without the result being similar enough to the molecules on a Controlled Substances list. The problem lies in the fact that many drugs with long histories of human use (opium, marijuana) have long histories of human use, and so they've been tested extensively and are known not to produce horrid adverse effects. It is hard to replicate the effects of a compound that has been selected and tested for efficacy and safety -- while being forced to make significant changes to the molecule. Examples of that include synthetic cannabinoids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabinoids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabinoids), which are a lot more dangerous than actual marijuana. All of these are either caused or significantly worsened by prohibition and can be much more readily avoided without prohibition. Those harms are not inherent to drug use; indeed, people who have adequate access to pharmaceutical-grade opioids can safely use them for decades without any major medical complications.

yock 9y ago

I'd defend the sale of anything which doesn't inherently infringe on the rights of others. A couple of the items on your list fit that category, others don't. The issue here is what reasoning we use to prohibit a thing, and when those reasons extend to attempting to prevent harms we tend to have problems.

zkms 9y ago

The production or use of {murder-for-hire, weapons, poisons, child abuse imagery} all involve grave and inherent harm -- regardless of the laws that regulate/prohibit them. The harm that drug use/manufacture causes is a lot more a function of the relevant policies/laws than the actual chemicals themselves. Indeed, most of the harm from illicit drug use comes from: 1. dose/concentration uncertainty or potential contamination with higher-potency drugs -- like unexpected fentanyl inside heroin 2. contamination with unwanted or dangerous chemicals (from manufacturing / distribution processes) -- such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPTP or cutting agents 3. Poly-drug use: combining any two of {opioids, benzos, alcohol} to exploit synergistic effects -- which can easily result in respiratory depression 4. Designer drugs / research chemicals -- the result of someone trying to make a drug that works on a given neurobiological target but without the result being similar enough to the molecules on a Controlled Substances list. The problem lies in the fact that many drugs with long histories of human use (opium, marijuana) have long histories of human use, and so they've been tested extensively and are known not to produce horrid adverse effects. It is hard to replicate the effects of a compound that has been selected and tested for efficacy and safety -- while being forced to make significant changes to the molecule. Examples of that include synthetic cannabinoids (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabinoids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_cannabinoids), which are a lot more dangerous than actual marijuana. All of these are either caused or significantly worsened by prohibition and can be much more readily avoided without prohibition. Those harms are not inherent to drug use; indeed, people who have adequate access to pharmaceutical-grade opioids can safely use them for decades without any major medical complications.