German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace' • Hacker News Board

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#231

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #200

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make advertising them illegal. Also make alcohol and tobacco advertising illegal at the same time.

That's kind of a minimal measure, and already implemented to some degree in many places. Its effects are limited, and it's a cat and mouse game because there are so many subtle ways to advertise.

These are all just speculations - we can take a stance we prefer and expand it ad infinitum. Kind of pointless.

Ie I am pro legalization, and I can't imagine if society had proper education and precise dosing people would go and overdose frequently. Do you often see people who decide to drink 2 litres of vodka in one setting? We all know how bad idea it is without the need to walk that path. Also alcohol is one of few (if not the only) drug that actively increases aggressiveness in consumers.

Its proven numerous times all over the world that legal marihuana pushes away worse addictions, lowers the crime. Even ignoring the tiny details of bringing benefits to consumers (select of various strengths and non-harmful methods of application), bringing benefits to the state (taxation, control over what folks consume) and overall society - taking away massive source of income for organized crime.

At this point it just doesn't make any sense for a rational society to have weed illegal. Shooting in its own foot, ignoring reality of humans and all that.

Psychedelics is another group where at least active research in treatment of various psychiatric disorders should be actively encouraged by state. Potential is massive, by far the best area for improvement in otherwise pretty stale domain of medical drugs development (unless you consider drugging into oblivion anybody with issues with valium et co, which basically no expert does).

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#232

Post by that_guy_iain » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:35 PM UTC

enkid wrote: post #195

that_guy_iain wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, yes. Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available. For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice. I've even been told of a story where people thought someone was having an overdose and they were told to go home because they couldn't risk…

Legalization has not stopped alcohol poisoning. Is there some reason it would stop heroin overdoses?

It's not so much it stops them but saving their life if they have one. If you see someone overdosing from heroin and intervene the person can live. Whereas, if they're sat alone in some house they'll die. Saferooms are about watching them and making sure they get medical treatment if needed. But then there is also the purity issue someone else mentioned.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#233

Post by twic » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #227

JimBlackwood wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, weed is a small part of the market. Agree on the legalisation though. In the Netherlands at least, I find it hard to name more than a few individuals in my social group (university students from a range of studies) that aren’t recreational users of XTC/psychedelics. Having visited festivals and clubs in other European countries, I think the situation is not much different there. It seems a bit pointless to kee…

I would be so scared to be a recreational user of MDMA at this point in time, because from what I hear there is a large amount of fentanyl and other concentrated opiates floating around in the street drug supply.

This is one of the great things about the dark web marketplaces - you can order from a supplier who already has a track record of positive reviews, and every incentive to keep it that way.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#234

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

Tenoke wrote: post #76

adenozine wrote: post #67

As more of the "largest darknet marketplace"s are taken down, it kinda becomes less and less impressive whenever some law enforcement agency does it. This one seems to have decent volume by BTC and other crypto, but it's not really anything earth-shattering. In the scheme of things, I don't see there being any major ground made in preventing people from selling dope online. It's nearly trivial to ship it anonymously…

No, they don't prevent people from buying drugs online but they sure make it less safe and more filled with bad actors by interfering with the reputational nature of them.

Which just harms consumers, who will anyway use the same method to get them. Nobody wins, state police just has some extra semi-meaningless jobs and prisons are a bit more full

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#235

Post by MrDresden » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

narag wrote: post #197

MrDresden wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the IRS would only have been involved if the money flowed into the US and/or to a US citizen. They have no jurisdiction abroad

The markets are used for transactions around the world. Probably a lot of them in the USA.

Which fits with what I wrote. Either a US citizen or crosses US borders. If not, then the IRS has no jurisdiction.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#236

Post by cronix » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

pengaru wrote: post #75

martin_a wrote: post #70

"the largest market" always reminds me of "Bin Ladens right hand". Obviously the next one becomes the largest, but nevertheless it's like they kill at least one of those markets a month. Probably legalizing weed would stop most of that more effectively than all those police operations after month of preparation.

Uhhh... weed is not even close to the most purchased drug via the dark web. Certainly not in plant matter form. They'd have to legalize all the club/party drugs to make a dent; pills and powders, lsd.

That's what Oregon just did in November. Well, decriminalized small amounts for personal use. They were the first to do that with cannabis nationally in 1973 as well which eventually led to medical use then recreational legalization, then everyone else followed suite and still are. It was interesting that during the most recent campaign the only thing people and campaigns were talking about was decriminalizing hallucinogens and neglected mentioning things like fentanyl. https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2020-12-10/...

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#237

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

Trias11 wrote: post #42

alasdair_ wrote: post #22

The article mentions the us irs were involved. For a german marketplace run by an Australian. Any idea why?

Because underpaying taxes is the worst possible offence against humanity.

Its state which punishes you, and not paying taxes and counterfeiting money is punished more than vicious murders or rapes. Cold hard viewpoint with very little human touch.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#238

Post by ath92 » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:46 PM UTC

spurgu wrote: post #151

ath92 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet Scandinavian countries have had great success by raising the price and limiting the availability of store-bought alcohol. I think this is similar to some UX patterns we see in software: most people will go with the default option because it is easier. Raising the amount of effort needed for something means fewer people will end up doing it.

Not sure what you mean by "success"? In Finland at least so many people (especially from the south) regularly (pre-COVID at least) take the ferry to Estonia to buy alcohol in bulk because of the insanely high alcohol taxes. If that option didn't exist I'd expect moonshine (and/or illegal exports) to become much more common.

See https://ourworldindata.org/alcohol-consumption#historical-pe...

Seems like people in Nordic countries (especially when not considering Denmark) consume less alcohol than their neighbours, although the difference has been decreasing.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#239

Post by that_guy_iain » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:47 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #198

that_guy_iain wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the most part, yes. Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available. For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice. I've even been told of a story where people thought someone was having an overdose and they were told to go home because they couldn't risk…

> For the most part, yes. No. > Lots of the harm comes from the fact they're not legal and cheaply available. I fully agree with this. > For example, heroin, I would say nearly all the harm comes from the fact it's not legal. Overdoses are prevented because they can happen in safe places where people will notice. Even if that is true, the harm that does not come from the fact that it's illegal would be magnified a hu…

> Even if that is true, the harm that does not come from the fact that it's illegal would be magnified a hundredfold if it became as widespread as alcohol (which is, please keep that in mind, the scenario I was talking about). That's not hyperbole: Accodding to the European Drug Report 2018 (https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/8585/...), the prevalence of injecting drugs (chiefly heroin) is between 0 and 0.9%, which consumption of alcohol is pretty damn near 100%.

With heroin specifically the increase would be nowhere near what alcohol is. Heroin is not a party drug while alcohol is. Cocaine, Meth, and MDMA I would expect to see increase in usage for the party scene but heroin specifically wouldn't see that increase, it would a small increase at first but overall that would go down. Portugal has shown that if you legalise the drug and make it a health issue you then get access to the addicts and you can help them. This means while more people will take it, the number of concurrent users will be lower because the number of people coming off it will be higher.

> Even if that is not exaggerated (which I strongly supect it is)

I'm pretty sure there was a study somewhere but I am lazy. But 1 thing I can tell you, every heroin addict I've met and talked with about the addiction of different things, I've met lots, has said they found tobacco harder to give up than heroin. Heroin it seems has a shorter withdrawal period than tobacco, so once you're over the hump you're for the most part fine. With tobacco from experience, it took weeks to stop taking nicotine gum and months for the cravings to go away.

> those are not the only kinds of harm: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/hero...

Those are envoirmental harm. I've heard heroin is healthier than alcohol but that's just some random heroin addicts so I take that with a grain of salt.

Re: German police take down 'world's largest darknet marketplace'

#240

Post by cronix » Thu, Jan 14, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #183

cfcosta wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Having drugs being illegal make them stronger, as they have to be transported in secret, and create derivative drugs to fill lower price ranges for long term addicts, such as crack and oxy.

> Yes. If they were as widely available, you would be able to know what you're buying, how much and hopefully how to apply it as safely as possible. Knowing and doing are two different things. Yes, you'd get fewer accidental overdoses from people getting stronger stuff than they thought. But you'd get more (possibly a lot more) people overdosing from chasing a high despite having built a tolerance, or from doing craz…

> And with full legalization, you'd have billions of advertizing dollars invested into marketing and research departments by companies trying to convince people to get high from their brand.

Legal competition is also pushing the THC levels up. The THC levels are definitely not going in a downward trend in legalized states like Oregon, Washington or California. Flower you can easily find 30+% levels of THC and with things like hash and other derivative concentrates you can find over 90% purity.