3 ms·

It reads more like "A heroin dealer tells the silk road jury what the prosecutor damned well told him to say" "Duch also described how the Silk Road’s customer

It reads more like "A heroin dealer tells the silk road jury what the prosecutor damned well told him to say" "Duch also described how the Silk Road’s customer base allowed him to reach buyers who he believed wouldn’t have otherwise had access to his product. " ergo, one of their arguments is going to be that SR created a drug market, and made addicts of innocent children who were looking for my little pony pictures and got tricked into taking smack.

jeffreyrogers 12y ago
> ergo, one of their arguments is going to be that SR created a drug market, and made addicts of innocent children who were looking for my little pony pictures and got tricked into taking smack. Doesn't that seem reasonable? Not in the extreme form you've taken at least, but in a milder form. It seems reasonable to me that a number of people who otherwise would not try heroin due to lack of access might try it if getting it becomes convenient enough. It's naive to assume that just because getting drugs is relatively easy that making it easier won't increase the number of people who decide to use drugs. Just as it is wrong for prosecutors to bend reality to fit their interpretation of the facts, it is wrong of those in favor of drug reform to bend reality to fit their interpretation. I would love to see more reasonable drug laws, and I'm probably far more libertarian than most in what changes I'd like to see, however, I recognize that by improving access to drugs you probably will also increase the number of people who do drugs, all else remaining constant.
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  But that's the thing - I don't believe that it did increase access in any substantive fashion - you can go virtually anywhere on the planet, and find someone selling the usual suspects. From those who I know who used SR (fully aware this is apocryphal!), usage actually generally decreased, as rather than buying large quantities infrequently from a local dealer (less risk), folks would buy smaller quantities more often, and thus moderate their consumption. The only things which certainly proliferated more readily as a result of SR would be RCs (Research Chemicals), which your shady park dealer does not usually carry. Either way, I reckon that this argument will be pivotal in their case, and they will, over the course of the trial, present hockey-stick graphs showing that SR has turned the entire planet into heroin users. So - I don't reckon this will have increased the number of people taking drugs. I would rather think that it may have encouraged people to experiment more than they otherwise would have due to increased access, but only in the case of people who are prior users of recreational substances - and as above, if anything, it reduced consumption in areas where a "street" supply already existed.
dimitar 12y ago
Duch himself was initially addicted to painkillers and due to the price and lack of access to them took up heroin. He probably did reach a lot of painkiller addicts that wouldn't have bought heroin without his aid. The economic proof of this is the huge markup he added (100%). If heroin was so available on the street they would have just bought it themselves. Now in a better world, the opioid addicts would have quit and the government would have mitigated the issue by giving them methadone for free. But regardless of whether this is the case, he did cause harm to his clients and society as a whole by hooking up to a more dangerous drug while they were at a vulnerable state.
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  No - the economic proof isn't proof whatsoever - he was buying in bulk from a mid/top dealer, and 100% markup is actually pretty moderate when dealing in controlled substances - consider also that your oh-so-friendly shady dude on a corner is cutting everything with everything, which is also markup, whereas SR dealers did not, if they wanted to stay in business. Folks bought from SR not because of increased availability, but due to decreased risk. Less interaction with dealers, less chance of law enforcement involvement, and you know what you're buying. Heroin isn't something that people just one day wake up and decide to do. It spreads socially - the vast, vast, VAST majority of users ended up so because someone they know uses. I live in a small, conservative, "safe" city - and I could pop out and come back with a sack of MDMA, weed/hash and heroin, if I so chose - but I don't. I promise you, this shit is everywhere. You just don't see it unless you either go looking or it's shown to you.

jeffreyrogers 12y ago

> ergo, one of their arguments is going to be that SR created a drug market, and made addicts of innocent children who were looking for my little pony pictures and got tricked into taking smack. Doesn't that seem reasonable? Not in the extreme form you've taken at least, but in a milder form. It seems reasonable to me that a number of people who otherwise would not try heroin due to lack of access might try it if getting it becomes convenient enough. It's naive to assume that just because getting drugs is relatively easy that making it easier won't increase the number of people who decide to use drugs. Just as it is wrong for prosecutors to bend reality to fit their interpretation of the facts, it is wrong of those in favor of drug reform to bend reality to fit their interpretation. I would love to see more reasonable drug laws, and I'm probably far more libertarian than most in what changes I'd like to see, however, I recognize that by improving access to drugs you probably will also increase the number of people who do drugs, all else remaining constant.

madaxe_again 12y ago
But that's the thing - I don't believe that it did increase access in any substantive fashion - you can go virtually anywhere on the planet, and find someone selling the usual suspects. From those who I know who used SR (fully aware this is apocryphal!), usage actually generally decreased, as rather than buying large quantities infrequently from a local dealer (less risk), folks would buy smaller quantities more often, and thus moderate their consumption. The only things which certainly proliferated more readily as a result of SR would be RCs (Research Chemicals), which your shady park dealer does not usually carry. Either way, I reckon that this argument will be pivotal in their case, and they will, over the course of the trial, present hockey-stick graphs showing that SR has turned the entire planet into heroin users. So - I don't reckon this will have increased the number of people taking drugs. I would rather think that it may have encouraged people to experiment more than they otherwise would have due to increased access, but only in the case of people who are prior users of recreational substances - and as above, if anything, it reduced consumption in areas where a "street" supply already existed.

dimitar 12y ago

Duch himself was initially addicted to painkillers and due to the price and lack of access to them took up heroin. He probably did reach a lot of painkiller addicts that wouldn't have bought heroin without his aid. The economic proof of this is the huge markup he added (100%). If heroin was so available on the street they would have just bought it themselves. Now in a better world, the opioid addicts would have quit and the government would have mitigated the issue by giving them methadone for free. But regardless of whether this is the case, he did cause harm to his clients and society as a whole by hooking up to a more dangerous drug while they were at a vulnerable state.

madaxe_again 12y ago
No - the economic proof isn't proof whatsoever - he was buying in bulk from a mid/top dealer, and 100% markup is actually pretty moderate when dealing in controlled substances - consider also that your oh-so-friendly shady dude on a corner is cutting everything with everything, which is also markup, whereas SR dealers did not, if they wanted to stay in business. Folks bought from SR not because of increased availability, but due to decreased risk. Less interaction with dealers, less chance of law enforcement involvement, and you know what you're buying. Heroin isn't something that people just one day wake up and decide to do. It spreads socially - the vast, vast, VAST majority of users ended up so because someone they know uses. I live in a small, conservative, "safe" city - and I could pop out and come back with a sack of MDMA, weed/hash and heroin, if I so chose - but I don't. I promise you, this shit is everywhere. You just don't see it unless you either go looking or it's shown to you.