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Bitcoin-Based Drug Market Silk Road Thriving With $2 Million In Monthly Sales
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Every day or so of the last six months, Carnegie Mellon computer security professor Nicolas Christin has crawled and scraped Silk Road, the Tor- and Bitcoin-based underground online market for illegal drug sales. Now Christin has released a paper (PDF) on his findings, which show that the site's business is booming: its number of sellers, who offer everything from cocaine to ecstasy, has jumped from around 300 in February to more than 550. Its total sales now add up to around $1.9 million a month. And its operators generate more than $6,000 a day in commissions for themselves, compared with around $2,500 in February. Most surprising, perhaps, is that buyers rate the sellers on the site as relatively trustworthy, despite the fact that no real identities are used. Close to 98% of ratings on the site are positive."
You decide.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
All the while destroying other people's lives while they're high
Point conceded here. Some drugs do cause people to behave monstrously. And alcohol even more so.
breaking into people's homes so they can steal to feed their habit
Point NOT conceded. A great number of people are alcoholics. However, there is no great wave of crime due to alcoholics breaking into people's homes to steal their liquor and/or money to buy more alcohol. Why is this? Two reasons. First, it is legal and therefore, moderately cheap. If you can hold down a job, you can afford to be a drunk. Second, alcohol use is socially accepted, for the most part, and thus a boozer is more likely to be able to hold a job as long as he's not falling down drunk at work. This ability to hold a job, due to social acceptance, is what enables the drunk to continue to purchase alcohol without robbing people.
You are allowing you anger to dictate possible solutions, instead of thinking about the actual outcomes. Would a death penalty on all drug traffickers actually cause a decrease in the amount of drugs consumed? That's nothing but a hypothesis. A mountain of evidence is available which suggests that the death penalty does nothing to deter criminals. They don't think they're going to get caught in the first place, so what matter is it what the punishment is? The death penalty gives you an adrenaline rush: "Justice, fuck yeah!" But that's all it does.
You are obviously uninterested in actually solving the problem, and more interested in watching people die.
Sorry but diabetes and liver-failure is not a quick kill-all for alcohol addicts. They just get transplants or waste medical dollars.
An alcoholic is highly unlikely to receive a liver transplant. They screwed up that organ of their own free will, therefore, we reserve these precious resources for people who suffer organ failure through no fault of their own. You are simply making shit up.
So in theory I could acquire a good number of anonymous bitcoin and have my shiny new drugs drop shipped to an ex, or maybe some poor politician I disagree with. Or, I could just ship it directly to me and claim I was being targeted. Just, you know, *theoretically*.
When I was in Thailand in 1974 there were only four drugs you couldn't buy in a pharmacy, and they were marijuana, cocaine, LSD and heroin. LSD and cocaine were completely unavailable, the place was awash with heroin and pot, and you needed no prescription for any other drug. Ecstasy might not have been invented then, but they had some amphetamines that one pill would keep you awake for two days straight. There was a salve available that was used for terminating pregnancies if the woman rubbed it on their belly button, or induce an out of body experience if you rubbed it on your temples. Quaaludes were available in pharmacies without a prescription as well.
Oddly, although the country was awash with heroin, the only heroin addicts I ran across were all GIs.
Free Martian Whores!
1) Illegal drugs fund the CIA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_and_Contras_cocaine_trafficking_in_the_US). No possibility of corruption there, of course.
2) Illegal drugs finance the banks (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/06/29/us-banks-laundered-mexican-drug-money/), even helps them weather financial crises (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims).
3) Last, but not at ALL least, illegal drug money finances congressional campaigns (http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/10/18/gordon-duff-how-drug-money-is-buying-our-new-congress/).
Illegal drugs! They feel good, taste good and they're so good for you! ...if you happen to be part of the world's money/power elite. This is why they'll never go away, and they'll never be legal.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Drug dealers are the resistance in The War on Drugs.
Actually, drug dealers are the ones hoping that the war on drugs continues, or they'll be out of work.
This is seriously on-topic. I know a pot dealer/grower who is spending a good chunk of his income fighting against continued/expanded legalization and medical marijuana initiatives because the ones already in place in this state are financially crippling him. Suddenly he's no longer the long-haired hippie: he has a suit, short hair, and shows up at every local public meeting on zoning to argue that allowing marijuana dispensaries is immoral and a danger to our children. It's sort of funny to watch, although I'm also fairly pissed at him because I am personally in favor of medical marijuana being easily available.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The main question here is whether or not crime rates are lower in these countries, and they are not, to my knowledge. The Netherlands with its much laxer narcotics regime however is taking in prisoners from other countries because they haven't enough to fill their own.
There was once this fantastic little tea shop in a small village in Switzerland, did amazing business
They specialized in Green Teas, had varieties from all over the world, extremely good quality and extremely expensive.
You bought your tea and they gave you the choice of giving your address with a perculiar little tick box.
You don't tick the box or don't give your address and you get a lovely little bag with nicely packed green tea.
You do and a few hours later a courier delivers an Amazon package to your door (still don't know where they sourced THAT) containing a specific quantity of something else that was green.
Great little business, too bad it's gone now... Owner apparently retired a very wealthy man.
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"