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U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

#71

Post by leot »

Retric wrote: post #56
knotty66 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MDMA (if that is what you mean, as street 'Ecstasy' can contain any number of other ingredients) is by most metrics one of the safer recreational drugs out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

MDMA is not old enough to show it's long term effects the way smoking or drinking has. One study of 52 users that where hand selected out of 1500 that showed no cognitive impairment. http://www.addictionjournal.org/viewpressrelease.asp?pr=147 Others studies both before and after have demonstrated issues. The problem is it's hard to find good data on individuals before they started heavy use, and sleep deprivation and…

You know what we're sure will ruin your future chances of holding down a job, will stunt your development, and might well lead to severe harm or even death?

Going to prison.

Putting people in prison for harming themselves is the height of absurdity.

Re: U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

#72

Post by stickfigure »

Retric wrote: post #56
knotty66 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MDMA (if that is what you mean, as street 'Ecstasy' can contain any number of other ingredients) is by most metrics one of the safer recreational drugs out there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rational_scale_to_assess_... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

MDMA is not old enough to show it's long term effects the way smoking or drinking has. One study of 52 users that where hand selected out of 1500 that showed no cognitive impairment. http://www.addictionjournal.org/viewpressrelease.asp?pr=147 Others studies both before and after have demonstrated issues. The problem is it's hard to find good data on individuals before they started heavy use, and sleep deprivation and…

You keep repeating "MDMA is not old enough..." but MDMA has been around since 1912, and used recreationally since the 60s. While there are certainly risks (mostly due to sourcing issues), negative effects are certainly subtle enough that after 40+ years of fairly widespread use, we haven't seen major epidemiological issues.

Furthermore, these risks must be balanced against the very tangible and easily observable psychological benefits. There's a reason psychotherapists used this drug.

Re: U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

#73

Post by nowarninglabel »

Retric wrote: post #57
jmtame wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two major misconceptions around MDMA, both funded by flawed government studies. The first misconception is that MDMA causes "holes in your brain" but this study was debunked. The original claim was based on the notion that MDMA "destroys up to 80% of your serotonin neurotransmitters irreversibly." This was shown to not be true for two reasons: a much larger study (the largest study ever conducted on MDMA us…

I gave a little more detail here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850923 But, while the holes in the brain and Parkinson's where not accurate there is significant evidence that MDMA causes issues and it's not old enough for a lot of long term issues to show up. PS: My mother has a PHD in neurology with a focus on brain development and MDMA is the drug she was most frightened of. Not that that actually means much…

Fear is not equal to facts. I'm sure your mother is a fine scientist, but just because she is afraid of something doesn't equate to facts. Link to a published study of hers? I doubt such exists though. I'd gladly accept a scientific consensus, if one existed, saying that MDMA was harmful, however there is no such consensus. All you are doing is spreading FUD.

Re: U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

#74

Post by rorrr »

simcop2387 wrote: post #53
rorrr wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Drugs and things sent through the mail would be fairly easy to track to a consumer Yeah, how?

Assuming they found them in the mail during transit using xray or some other method since they were in canada, shipping to US goes through customs which has special rules allowing that, then they can look at who is receiving the package and then they get them to squeal on who the dealer was.

I don't think they x-ray every single package, that's just impossible, and who would look at all the x-rays.

So even if they do it,

1) your chances of getting caught are extremely low

2) i don't think you're liable for receiving a package (though you may be for keeping and not reporting it).

Re: U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

#75

Post by nowarninglabel »

ckcheng wrote: post #51
paged90 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MDMA isn't -that- harmful. You're assuming when you buy Ecstasy you're being solid pure MDMA, which often is not the case.

E.g. "Police link 25 deaths and counting from tainted Canadian ecstasy" http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/can... "12th death linked to tainted ecstasy in Alberta, B.C." http://www.vancouversun.com/12th+death+linked+tainted+ecstas... "8 Alberta deaths linked to ecstasy-like drug" http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2012/01/31/calga...

"A cholesterol-lowering drug taken by 700,000 Americans — Bayer Pharmaceutical's Baycol — was pulled off the market Wednesday because of muscle destruction linked to 31 U.S. deaths and at least nine more fatalities abroad" http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-1788794.html

Re: U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

#76

Post by nowarninglabel »

loverobots wrote: post #37

Looks like Hushmail was their weak point. Feds got court order from Canada based on treaty and it flowed from there. But yeah, between advertising, shipping, getting paid and moving money around it's hard to stay anon .

Hushmail has been known to be open to law enforcement for years, they even talk about it in "Kingpin", http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/hushmail-to-war/

Amazing they would choose to communicate over it.

Re: U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight

#79

Post by jmtame »

joshu wrote: post #78

Web page is dead. Was this silk road? I've been meaning to scrape prices from there as a pet economics project.

No, the project was called The Farmer's Market. While it operated on Tor, they accepted payments over PayPal which completely breaks the anonymity chain. Silk Road is still operational and uses other security mechanisms (in addition to a decentralized, digital anonymous currency) to further anonymize transactions, running all payments through a tumbler.
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