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Startup founder wants to sell cocaine
- mise_en_place 3y agoCoca leafs have legitimate uses for medical and naturopathic purposes. Only in America will we twist such ancient traditions into a degenerate narrative.
- porkbeer 3y agoIts true. We just dont appreciate ritual human sacrifice like we used to.
- borski 3y agohttps://archive.is/CTNOY https://archive.is/CTNOY
- bryanrasmussen 3y agodon't we all? facetious, actually it seems like an awful customer base to have to deal with.
- throwup238 3y agoYou always have another layer below you out on the streets pushing your product. The manufacturer never deals with the customers directly. This layer would be the pharmacists. Just watch out for the rivalries. Any time people from CVS and Walgreens see each other, they start a shootout.
- tucnak 3y agoThis is cyberpunk af
- jrflowers 3y agoCyberpunk is when people buy cocaine. Like the 19th century
- throwup238 3y agoI want to sell a heroin inhaler and nasal spray.
- sans_souse 3y agoI wonder how the Cartel feel about Mr Panagiotakopoulos's plans?
- dqft 3y agoThey can't wait to go legit
- isoprophlex 3y agoIf I were this guy, I'd be spending half my VC money on personal security...
- Zenzero 3y agoYes that was my first thought. The incentives seem high for cartels to sabotage something like that, and I imagine their tactics are not restricted to just destroying the product. As a rule, in any business you start, you are going to become well acquainted with your competitors.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- p1dda 3y agothe majority of people can't handle hard drugs, they will ruin their lives and their kids and their families lives as well 'startup founders' like him are idiots
- futureduck 3y agothe majority of people cannot handle a bunch of things. doesn't mean these things have to be illegal
- BMc2020 3y agoThey never ruin just their own lives though. I am open to something like letting then parachute on to 'Cocaine Island', never to return.
- Ferret7446 3y agoDrugs cause a lot of collateral damage to friends, family, and society, so it is reasonable to treat them differently than, say, extremely spicy peppers.
- hackerlight 3y agoMaking it illegal also causes collateral damage. Drug gangs, taxpayer money spent on jails and enforcement, deaths due to fentanyl lacing, spread of disease due to needle sharing, foregone taxation revenue, incentive for petty theft, adoption of worse but cheaper substitutes (crack cocaine, krokodil).
- quotz 3y agoThe majority of people cant handle coca cola and mcdonalds, cocaine is the least of problems
- bigfudge 3y agoAlcohol is the one people really can’t handle. The evidence is that this causes far more harm to users and society than other hard drugs.
- siva7 3y ago“Just the wrong people are making the money.” I couldn't agree more
- justforasingle 3y ago[flagged]
- jl6 3y agoSo is this a genuine question or an antisemitic jaqoff?
- khazhoux 3y agoWhy would it be anti-Semitic?
- jl6 3y agoIt seems to pointedly spell out the stereotypically Jewish names of the investors. This is a common anti-Semitic dogwhistle: https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/echo https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/echo Also seen in the now-banned browser extension Coincidence Detector. Of course it’s very easy to defend as innocently “just asking questions”: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/JAQ_off https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/JAQ_off
- khazhoux 3y agoFunny, I didn't think they were stereotypically Jewish. Arbib, in particular, rings of Arabic or Persian (Abdil, Arbab, etc, ...) At any rate, this venture is odd enough that it seemed a valid question to ask how the investors are connected to it. (shrug)
- HideousKojima 3y agoGoldman and Biderman strike me as decently likely to be Jewish last names, not sure about Arbib. But I'm also curious why the poster you replied to instantly assumed OP was going for an antisemitic angle.
- jl6 3y agoArbib is a surname of Sephardic Jewish origin, and this particular Arbib has a Twitter account which more or less identifies himself as Jewish. I instantly identified the issue because I’ve seen it so many times before. When it comes to anonymous internet commenters, there’s really only one reason for someone to go out of their way to point out Jewishness. Anyway, the offending comment is now dead.
- ed_elliott_asc 3y agoThe fact is millions of people take illegal drugs every day, anyone who wants them, anywhere in the world can get hold of them, pretty much at any time. The way drugs are produced and distributed causes harm to communities all along the path from production to people who use them. The level of danger that being illegal has caused whole sections of society cannot be overstated. If criminalising all this stuff hadn’t worked over the last hundred odd years maybe it is time for a different approach? The question is what does it look like? It won’t ever be stopped so what comes next?
- ed_elliott_asc 3y agoI was just reading bbc news and this article came up: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-68637317.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-68637317.amp This is a classic example of drugs in the UK, a women who potentially could have gone to jail leaving her child without anyone to care for her, multiple handguns which are actually hard to get hold of in the UK and are themselves potentially lethal weapons. A criminal network all created around and sustained for the distribution of heroin.
- thinkingemote 3y agoThe irony is that prohibition does work at what it sets out to do but with massive side effects. It reduces levels of consumption, reduces levels of illness, reduces domestic and street violence, increases health, increases safety of women and children in the home, increases family stability, increases productivity. Obviously it also brings about massive organised criminal networks along with it which cause huge harms. The question is what does an approach look like where we keep benefits of reduced usage with less crime.
- ed_elliott_asc 3y agoI know in the uk looking at prohibition and cocaine, it has failed. Almost every pub after a weekend will have traces of cocaine in the toilets - even the Houses of Parliament has cocaine in the toilets when it has been tested. I honestly don’t believe if it was legal then there would be many more users taking it. I think because alcohol is already legal and has problems associated with it you would get an incremental increase in crimes like alcohol driven fighting and vandalism, drunk driving etc which would increase (drug driving, drug driven fighting and vandalism, etc) but overall there would be a reduction in harm, and potential benefits like taxation which can be used for treatment and education to steer people away from harm.
- Animats 3y agoIf someone wants to work on a new recreational drug, look into Alcarelle.[1] It's an alcohol replacement. It produces an alcohol-like buzz, but it's self-limiting - supposedly it won't take people all the way to drunk, and it's claimed to have no hangover.[2] It apparently works, but is a tough sell. Someone has to push it through FDA approval. [1] https://gabalabs.com/ https://gabalabs.com/ [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/synthetic-alcohol-no-hangover-511fc418 https://www.wsj.com/articles/synthetic-alcohol-no-hangover-5...
- Sn0wCoder 3y agoIf this is for real would-be game changing. The problem with alcohol is it works but the more often you drink the more it takes to feel the same effects. Hence being over the legal limit but not feeling ‘wasted’. The unnecessary calories are also a problem, did you eat; why pork chop in every beer. Seems that people who already have an alcohol tolerance will not feel much if they use synthetic Gaba, so a 2/3-week break is needed to experience the pleasure of Alcarelle (based on my reading). Social drinking is a great way to have some fun with co-workers and old friends, but something like this would give those who do not drink an opportunity to open without the guilt of drinking. I love a good buzz but also want to set a good example for my children and really hate the empty calories. Seems Alcarelle will have the same problem with the tolerance but seems like it will just not work anymore and require another break (which is not a bad thing). Very interested in the product but seems to be 3-5 years out before its mainstream. Has anyone tried this product that seems to be using the same technology but is already on the market? https://sentiaspirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spirits https://sentiaspirits.com/collections/non-alcoholic-spirits Seems to be the ‘natural’ version of the substance. I also have heard people talk about taking straight Gaba in pill or powder form and wonder how Alcarelle differs (is not clear from a quick search).
- Animats 3y agoSentia, the "natural" version, was created to avoid regulatory problems. The GABA people say the synthetic one, Alcarelle, is better, but needs more approvals. Their site indicates they're looking for an investor to put the products through FDA testing. That's a big effort. It's not clear what the criteria for recreational drugs should be. What if a small fraction of the population has an adverse reaction?
- tmelm 3y agoHonestly this is kind of a double edged sword. Allowing all drug use, and legalizing some form of registered and sanctioned trade of it might be better than what we have now, who knows. But at the same time, imagine large companies advertising drugs, targeted drug ads, the highly likely increased recreational consumption and normalization... I don't think society is fit to handle practically unhindered drug use.
- bigfudge 3y agoYour dystopia is not the only alternative to prohibition. Legal sales through boring/uncool government outlets would be my preference.
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoYou don’t have to allow advertising.
- Ylpertnodi 3y agoAdverts? Dont allow it (word of mouth will work even better - especially with known purities not available on the streets). Just follow the cigarette industries ad-rules, but stronger. Or....like beer and other alcohols.
- bsaul 3y agoi've witnessed the incredible normalization of cocaine use during the last 40 years and it's getting out of control. The first symptom is holywood. Back in the days, a scene with someone taking cocaine was always dark and sordid. The guy was obviously the bad guy, and it ended pretty bad for him (or her, as in pulp fiction for example). Fast forward 30 years and you now regularly see scenes of people doing hard drug as a mean of having fun without any kind of repercussions. It is totally absurd. I've always wondered if that wasn't a symptom of some kind of infiltration of the drug cartel into the movie industry. Holywood is now basically routinely showing ads for hard drugs.
- fransje26 3y ago> I've always wondered if that wasn't a symptom of some kind of infiltration of the drug cartel into the movie industry. Holywood is now basically routinely showing ads for hard drugs. That would make perfect sense. I'm sure they are ready to pay a lot more than Coca-Cola for a product placement..
- Nursie 3y agoI mean, that’s the reality though. Most cocaine use is infrequent and short term. People who take it usually only take it occasionally, and usually for only a short period of their lives. Yes, it is really quite addictive, objectively, but even so within that context that’s how it goes for most. Other than meth and heroin, this is most drug users’ experience of most drugs. So if Hollywood and TV are now showing things more in line with lived experience, is that so wrong?
- Sirizarry 3y agoWill someone think of the children?? There’s a lot of misinformation and fear around recreational drug use but the reality is people really like to use them! Hollywood can certainly be used for propaganda but I believe more often than not they’re simply reflecting the popular attitudes of the day. Hard drugs are dangerous. Hard drugs are fun! Just don’t be an idiot, make good friends, and enjoy the trip.
- Gud 3y ago
- kvonhorn 3y agoWe see that mass marketing and availability of opioids had a touch of harm that continues to be mitigated, but surely making cocaine widely available won't have any of the messy problems of opioids. Seriously, though, let's stop trying to legalize and market any more addictive products in order to make a few a-holes rich while the risks are externalized onto society.