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How the Web Makes a Real-Life Breaking Bad Possible
gallifreyan99 writes "The real revolution in drugs isn't Silk Road—it's the open web. Thanks to the net, almost anyone with a basic handle on chemistry can design, manufacture and sell their own narcotics, and in most cases the cops are utterly unable to stop them. This piece is kind of crazy: the writer actually creates a new powerful-but-legal stimulant based on a banned substance, and gets a Chinese lab to manufacture it."
The internet has information on it. We'll bring you the latest as this story unfolds.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Obviously enforcement of every bespoke chemical being synthesized to order is impractical even by the standards of the drug wars; but are substances such as the one described in the article actually 'legal'? My (admittedly layman's) understanding of the Federal Analog Act was that it was a fairly blatant blanket ban on 'absolutely anything that looks like something illegal and has some recreational potential'. A rather expansive law; but one that you can't just wiggle past on a technicality (though, obviously, you can wiggle past on sheer logistical impracticality; but so can ~40 billion dollars worth of cocaine, so that isn't really a legality test...)
Legalize everything and fight abuse with proper education, not the duck and cover shit!
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
The "traditional" drugs are known risks with known treatments; we should simply legalize them and offer support and treatment to those who want it. There would be less suffering and as a society, we'd be a lot better off.
However! this doesn't mean that listening to recreational (medical uses not included here) music is a positive experience. It can be relatively harmless, as with the occasional listen of Beethoven's 9th, but ultimately it's about escaping reality. And, if you're trying to escape reality, it means you have some problem with reality. Deal with that.
FTFY.
Seriously, you're clueless if you think recreational use of drugs is ultimately about "escaping reality". You're equating "fun" with "escaping reality".
See, there are two sides to this story and they always talk past each other. One side says drugs are cool, and everyone should do a little, just to see what it's like and if it's not your thing then it's OK. They only see the positive effects. The other side works in emergency rooms and treatment centers and only sees the negative effects, and warns everyone to stay away, don't even try drugs once because we hear that story everyday of the guy who tried it once, liked it, and ruined his previously promising life.
What do these two views have in common? Fucking druggies. People who are wholly incapable of controlling themselves so they ruin it for everyone. There is a certain kind of person that freaking loves drugs. They'll structure their entire lives so that they can do drugs, and they don't care about who they harm in the process. They will steal from and hurt people they love. Hunter S. Thompson said, "You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug," and he knew what he was talking about. Other people don't care for drugs at all. I've known veterans who have been prescribed the best sorts of opiates for legitimate medical reasons, and all they do is complain about how their minds "feel fuzzy and can't think straight". This fuzzy feeling is exactly what pleases druggies the most.
So, what do you do? Legalize drugs and let druggies run wild? Put them all on an island where they don't pay rent, eat for free and get all they drugs they want? Hell, why should I work for a living when I can just do that? Keep drugs illegal and scare away most of the good people? Who knows, maybe I've been looking all my life for methamphetamine and just don't know it yet because I've never tried it because I'm scared of going to jail. The main problem that both sides have is the fucking druggies. If it weren't for them, we could have safe, legal drugs and it wouldn't be a goddamn problem.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Some become addicted to drugs, others drink or gambling or base jumping. They're part of the human spectrum and you'll never get rid of them. Some would argue (and I'd agree) that a healthy civilisation needs all types of personalities to function. However because of their type of personality they need to be protected from themselves when it comes to really dangerous stuff and drugs comes into this category. Whats the solution? I don't know. Complete prohibition never works , but then a free for all would be a disaster for all concerned too. *shrug*
Joking. Interesting read. Clearly some drugs, by all means not all, should be legalised - better quality, increased safety, less incentives to invent untested and often hazardous chemicals and, last but not least, PROFIT for the country's budget! Old school politics and the WOD nonsense have caused enough damage already. Even the head of UK Police is saying it: End war on drugs, says Durham police chief Mike Barton
Trying to stop people altering their consciousness with chemicals is a waste of time. As long as people aren't driving around under the influence, or otherwise endangering third parties, who gives a shit ? If someone is stupid enough to get addicted to something that's their problem. Give it to them free and give them free treatment until they get clean (i.e. don't force them to become petty thieves to sustain a habit)
The real problem with drugs is that they can cause people to lose their societal conditioning and they will no longer play the game and act like a good sheeple.
Not forgetting that prisons and the court system are a great money spinner for the privileged classes.
Look at Victorian England. Laudenum, Cocaine, Opium, Heroin all available over the counter from the local chemist. High society parties where people would have a good dinner then sit around sniffing glue and ether. Did society collapse ? Did people spend all day high doing nothing ? No. A myriad of wonderful mechanical inventions came about, amazing stuff got built and people got on with their lives.
If that's what happens when people can get high in peace bring it on.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
It's only because drugs are all banned that the problems exist. If someone wishing to get high could take a drug which has been regulated, they would be less interested in taking any old crap their mate recommends, in what could be a completely incorrect dose.
Surely, as technology improves the number of drugs will increase? Just banning every single drug is barely feasible now, as the article makes clear, and the problem is just going to get worse. If society is going to tolerate the consumption of any kind of mind-altering substance, we will have to learn to investigate and regulate them.
PeerWat
So please, 3D printing fans, show me where we can 3D print molecules.
In a lab.
....for existing pharmaceuticals?
How difficult is it to create a series of shell companies in various third world countries in order to more or less legitimately obtain narcotics or precursors at wholesale quantitites through global pharmaceutical or chemical supply chains?
I imagine that the likely places of manufacture, like India, have pretty strong controls on domestic wholesale, but what about international sales? If you're a wholesaler in Nairobi buyng from India and reselling to Paraguay, how closely is that monitored and by whom? How do the exporters in India vet who they sell to as distibutors overseas? And how much vetting is done by distributors to overseas end users?
Given the level of corruption in most of these places, it seems like it wouldn't be very hard to see this exploited, especially if the USA or other first-world country wasn't part of the list of transaction partners.