A Heroin Dealer Tells the Silk Road Jury What It Was Like to Sell Drugs Online • Hacker News Board

Re: A Heroin Dealer Tells the Silk Road Jury What It Was Like to Sell Drugs Online

#91

Post by army » Thu, Jan 29, 2015, 4:45 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #35

cmdkeen wrote: post #13

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…

...at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it I infer from this statement that you believe that, in the case of legalization, the price would still be high enough to require crime. Do you have any reason to believe that heroin is inherently more expensive to manufacture than, say, aspirin? Also, unless heroin addiction skew…

Heroin still requires growing poppies. Aspirin can be be synthesized.

Re: A Heroin Dealer Tells the Silk Road Jury What It Was Like to Sell Drugs Online

#92

Post by stickfigure » Thu, Jan 29, 2015, 8:05 PM UTC

army wrote: post #91

stickfigure wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...at $3,500 a week the price reduction would have to be huge before any legal drug wouldn't continue to create acquisitive crime to fund it I infer from this statement that you believe that, in the case of legalization, the price would still be high enough to require crime. Do you have any reason to believe that heroin is inherently more expensive to manufacture than, say, aspirin? Also, unless heroin addiction skew…

Heroin still requires growing poppies. Aspirin can be be synthesized.

Replace 'aspirin' with 'vitamin d' in my question.

Re: A Heroin Dealer Tells the Silk Road Jury What It Was Like to Sell Drugs Online

#93

Post by mercer » Thu, Jan 29, 2015, 8:49 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #79

geographomics wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your 23% statistic is very revealing; in recent years there's been a lot of research into the underlying neurobiology of addiction. Turns out that addicts are often quite predisposed to getting addicted, either through genetics (such as variants in the components of neurotransmitter systems) or their early environment. And through long-term changes in the brain from substance abuse - as an example, over-consuming alc…

I hold the suspicion that if you check up on most addicts of any kind, you will find someone that had social issues before touching drugs.

Possibly. But for me 'social issues' is a bit too vague for comfort.

Very normal, in itself healthy social interaction could bring one to alcoholism for example, and nobody, including the addict, will be aware of the problem for a long time.

I believe a more interesting claim would be to say 'social issues involving a significant other'. It's easy to hide problems of various kinds from your friends; it's much harder to do so with a partner, especially living together.

I'm not saying having such a partner prevents addiction, but I do think that it makes it harder to maintain without ramifications. I suspect a significant part of addicts either lack in a significant other, or have one who suffers from 'compatible' issues.

Personally I've found that partners and flatmates (family or otherwise) are a primary reason for not spiraling into bad habits (or addictions). With friends it's too easy to 'manage' yourself.

Re: A Heroin Dealer Tells the Silk Road Jury What It Was Like to Sell Drugs Online

#94

Post by stickfigure » Thu, Jan 29, 2015, 11:20 PM UTC

mercer wrote: post #93

digi_owl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hold the suspicion that if you check up on most addicts of any kind, you will find someone that had social issues before touching drugs.

Possibly. But for me 'social issues' is a bit too vague for comfort. Very normal, in itself healthy social interaction could bring one to alcoholism for example, and nobody, including the addict, will be aware of the problem for a long time. I believe a more interesting claim would be to say 'social issues involving a significant other'. It's easy to hide problems of various kinds from your friends; it's much harder…

The Rat Park experiment provides a lot of insight here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

If you prefer the graphic novel:

http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/

Re: A Heroin Dealer Tells the Silk Road Jury What It Was Like to Sell Drugs Online

#95

Post by afro88 » Thu, Jan 29, 2015, 11:29 PM UTC

tP5n wrote: post #88

afro88 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Route of administration changes how quickly, how hard and in what way drugs hit you. For example, someone could rub some coke on their gums and have a numb mouth and be slightly more alert, or snort the same amount and get a rush.

I think you're mistaken. While the first part is certainly true - I remain doubtful about the implication for addictive potential of a drug - the second part is a rather bad example: Both in your nose and in your mouth the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream via a mucous membrane. The reason you don't see a lot of people putting large doses of cocaine on their gums is largely practical... same thing for mdma for ex…

You're focussing on physical addiction. A drug hitting you nearly instantly (IV use) vs over a period of time is definitely more psychologically addictive. There's really no argument there..

>Both in your nose and in your mouth the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream via a mucous membrane. The reason you don't see a lot of people putting large doses of cocaine on their gums is largely practical... same thing for mdma for example, just the other way around.

It's more practical to put it in your gums though - you don't need to lay it out, crush it up, line it up into lines, find/roll a tube etc. You just stick your finger into the packet and rub it on your gums. Do a little research - snorting affects you in a more intense way.

> /edit The coke-numbs-your-gums part is supposed to be a test for the quality of the product, easily faked though.

Cocaine was used by dentists to numb gums. It acts as an anaesthetic. Drug dealers play on this and add numbing agents to other drugs and pass it off as coke.