There are a few interesting takeaways: - Pain perscriptions as a gateway to more hardcore drug use that destroys life, it doesn't sound like this individual had any "liberty" to make choices once he had become hooked on painkillers - Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in monetary terms, at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive cri…
There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to.
Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.
There are a few interesting takeaways: - Pain perscriptions as a gateway to more hardcore drug use that destroys life, it doesn't sound like this individual had any "liberty" to make choices once he had become hooked on painkillers - Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in monetary terms, at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive cri…
There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to. Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.
There are a few interesting takeaways: - Pain perscriptions as a gateway to more hardcore drug use that destroys life, it doesn't sound like this individual had any "liberty" to make choices once he had become hooked on painkillers - Heroin addictions are incredibly expensive in monetary terms, at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive cri…
There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to. Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.
> opium dens
The modern equivalent is spending hours watching reality TV and eating fast food.
There's historical precedent for legalized heroin - it's the opium dens of the mid/late 19th century. I don't think that's a world that many people want to go back to. Most of the time when people talk about drug legalization, they mean things like marijuana, LSD, or ecstasy.
> opium dens The modern equivalent is spending hours watching reality TV and eating fast food. Not trying to be snarky. I mean it.
So if I'm eating fast food and watching a non-reality TV program, I've left the opium den, right?
Where do you obtain the raw product from? This dealer was buying $6000 bricks of heroin, so the only people being cut out were the middlemen just above the street dealers. The cartels are absolutely still the people being funded by this activity. Or in the case of heroin organisations like the Taliban. There is a substantial difference between growing a bit of weed to sell and the industrial scale production required…
Interesting, I never realized that the Taliban reversed its position on heroin and now supports its production. Thank God we invaded. Anyway, this [0] Quora answer, specifically pointing out the New York/New Jersey market, states that most heroin in the US comes from South America. I suspect that the CIA played a big part in creating these cartels in the first place, and if it reverted to individual buyers getting th…
How on earth is that reversion going to happen? The cartels will just pack their bags and let an non-profit organic collective take over the farms?
> Aside from offering a hands-on account of how the Silk Road worked from a dealer’s perspective, Duch’s story calls into question claims that the Silk Road reduced violence by moving drug sales from the street to the relative safety of the internet. Duch’s testimony seemed to suggest that he wouldn’t have sold drugs at all if it weren’t for the Silk Road... Wow. What a stupendous flaw in logic and reasoning. I guess…
> But in terms of harm reduction Silk Road was pretty awesome (fwiw, I never used the service). Not only did it derisk buying and selling drugs... I don't see how it follows that derisking drug sales necessarily didn't increase harm. Yes, if you were selling drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get into a violent confrontation with a client. Yes, if you were buying drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get…
Heroin isn't weed. It destroys lives of its users and certainly harms the society at large. To say otherwise is preposterous, at best.
deciplex didn't say it wasn't. Read the phrase again.
In fact, it's exactly because heroin is harmful that an approach that actually has a chance of reducing its use - unlike the aforementioned drug war - is in dire need.
> But in terms of harm reduction Silk Road was pretty awesome (fwiw, I never used the service). Not only did it derisk buying and selling drugs... I don't see how it follows that derisking drug sales necessarily didn't increase harm. Yes, if you were selling drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get into a violent confrontation with a client. Yes, if you were buying drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get…
> Heroin isn't weed. It destroys lives of its users Well, no more than any other addiction to opiates. The issue with heroin addiction is that 1) it's illegal; (in many places) 2) it's expensive as hell. Clean Heroin by itself has no majorly bad side effects that aren't associated with other (legal and regularly used/abused) opiates like oxy/hydrocodene. Constipation and cotton mouth are about all that comes to mind.…
This isn't really true, pharmacologically. One way to measure the safety of a drug is the therapeutic index [1], basically the ratio of the lethal dose to the effective dose. It's basically how much of a margin of error you have when administering the drug before it'll kill you. Morphine has a TI of around 70, marijuana and LSD are > 1000, codeine is 20, alcohol is around 10, and heroin is 5 [2].
Where do you obtain the raw product from? This dealer was buying $6000 bricks of heroin, so the only people being cut out were the middlemen just above the street dealers. The cartels are absolutely still the people being funded by this activity. Or in the case of heroin organisations like the Taliban. There is a substantial difference between growing a bit of weed to sell and the industrial scale production required…
Interesting, I never realized that the Taliban reversed its position on heroin and now supports its production. Thank God we invaded. Anyway, this [0] Quora answer, specifically pointing out the New York/New Jersey market, states that most heroin in the US comes from South America. I suspect that the CIA played a big part in creating these cartels in the first place, and if it reverted to individual buyers getting th…
Look, I'm as pro-legalisation as they come, but this sort of delusional reasoning is hurting our case, because it makes us all look stupid. Large scale poppy and coca production requires resources far beyond a single farmer growing, processing and shipping envelopes from the jungle in SA. The reason cartels control manufacture, import and wholesale distribution is because it requires significant logistical, financial and security resources to operate these systems at scale. How many coffee farmers do you know of that ship their beans from their huts? 'Economies of scale' is a real thing. Oh and the idea that the CIA somehow 'created' cartels is straight out tinfoil hat territory. 'Occasionally aligning forces to achieve a common goal' is a far way from 'create cartels'.
> Duch’s heroin shipments from a Monroe, New York post office ... disguised with a fake return address. That bulk mail envelope scanning program sure must've came handy for tracking the origin of his shipments.
Any idea of how he did get caught? I've searched around briefly but haven't found anything.
> But in terms of harm reduction Silk Road was pretty awesome (fwiw, I never used the service). Not only did it derisk buying and selling drugs... I don't see how it follows that derisking drug sales necessarily didn't increase harm. Yes, if you were selling drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get into a violent confrontation with a client. Yes, if you were buying drugs on Silk Road you were less likely to get…
I like how you conveniently ignored the parent's comments about cartels. Also I don't understand the use of "pseudo-libertarian" here? Drug usage is a personal decision and it's none of state's business. That is the very definition of libertarianism. It has nothing to do with Silk Road but since you brought it up, legalising drug usage is for the greater good. You see the real danger does not originate from violent c…
> Drug usage is a personal decision and it's none of state's business.
Not unless the drug has been empirically found to have a high probability of harming the individual and a high probability of spreading through communities. Then it's very much state's business because it becomes a matter of social preservation.
> I don't understand the use of "pseudo-libertarian".
"Pseudo-libertarian" is the kind of libertarian that doesn't account of empirical evidence in their arguments.