Not to be hard-hearted, but if a few drug dealers get killed because Silk Road was shut down, I rather suspect the Feds will regard this as a bonus, not collateral damage.
Unfortunately drug dealers don’t always get killed quietly and out of sight. There could very well be shootouts and car chases which can just as easily hurt anyone else nearby.
Plus I have a feeling many major drug suppliers aren’t very tech savvy and won’t take kindly to explanations of seized Bitcoins and whatnot.
Maybe the Feds won’t mind, but us regular joe’s should. I understand there are a lot of issues present with drugs but I don’t think it is right how many lives are lost trying to stop something the wrong way.
How is this the ‘wrong way’? I think people accept some risk when they get into any high return enterprise.
Oh, just hating on the war against drugs in general. Yes, there is risk in all we do.
I suppose they could always skip town and show up in Canada and be just fine there 
I saw on reddit that at the very early days of TSR people could sell firearms and hire people to do hits but the owner decided to stop that pretty quick and just allow the drugs.
You are probably thinking of the Deep Web, which includes legitimate stuff as well the nefarious underworld of the internet.
Straight Dope article on the Deep Web and the Dark Web.
This is sounding more and more D&D. Can I get drow prostitutes on the Deep Web? And I should use Tor when I get there?
The War on Drugs is “the wrong way” in that penalties are disproportionate and irrational.
Marijuana is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, and arguably less harmful overall.
But it’s punished quite severely- it’s a *felony *in Nevada, even for simple possession of small amounts.
Can you imagine somebody going to jail over a couple of beers? No, of course not. Not since the end of Prohibition, our last War on Drugs.
Except we’re not just talking about pot here. You could literally order black tar heroin, or cocaine, or MDMA, or really anything from a Silk Road vendor and have it delivered to your front door via US mail.
No it isn’t, although that might’ve been true at one time. Up to 1 ounce is a misdemeanor, and might often be suspended, although penalties increase with consecutive convictions (felony on 4th+). The medical marijuana program is expanding as well, dispensaries are coming.
My only experience with anything is knowing people (no not “a friend”) who bought things like morning glory seeds off the regular internet to make LSA, and I know you could buy sativa and such.
My sympathies for anyone who deals drugs getting killed by other drug dealers over this are less than nil. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
For some good reading/foreshadowing, check out the interview he did with Forbes (lol… pride/fall) a bit over a month ago.
Choice teaser quote:
The Guardian clearly think he was an utter idiot.
Wow! *Actual *heroin, cocaine or MDMA? Delivered to your front door? My god, soon they’ll have hookers that can drive!
I consider myself fairly tech-savvy and I still don’t fully understand Bitcoins— although at this point it’s less “WTF is a Bitcoin?” and more “HTF can this shit possibly not implode on itself?”
It is a fitting update on the cliché, I guess. Traditionally, the middleman dealer blows the fronted money at the racetrack.
#1 isn’t stupid (the quotes of him describing Silk Road are extremely oblique). And as for #2, getting fake ID’s with a “real photo of himself” is the whole point of fake ID’s (as I said earlier, the real stupid thing was trying to ship them across a national border).
#3 was mildly dumb, though I doubt the Feds would’ve been able to use it to link him to silk road except for his other, more blatent use of his real name where he actually discussed Silk Road.
#4 is meaningless. Lots of people are interested in Mises.
#5 was the only one that was really stupid. And evil.
I don’t follow your snark. I was replying to **aNewLeaf’s **post about the drug war that was pretty focused on marijuana. I was pointing out that this Silk Road thing wasn’t just about pot, which I have no problem with (except that I just ran out a few days ago).