Silk Road's Leader Paid a Doctor To Help Keep Customers Safe

An anonymous reader writes: Two years after the fall of Silk Road, new facts about the saga are still emerging all the time. The latest revelation is that Dread Pirate Roberts, the leader of Silk Road, paid a doctor $500 per week to offer public and private counseling to customers of the site. DoctorX, also known as Dr. Fernando Caudevilla, became famous for his free work on the site. The fact that he was eventually paid a salary is being used by lawyers for Ross Ulbricht to argue that Silk Road emphasized harm reduction and was, on the whole, a huge improvement in safety for drug users.

Comments

America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Billions of taxpayer dollars every year that could be allocated to education, repairing roads/bridges and other infrastructure (rail, anyone?) are instead spent on keeping substances illegal and locking up addicts.

Millions of dollars worth of taxpayers' legitimate cash and bank account balances are stolen by the government every year through nebulous civil forfeiture laws. If you get pulled over on your way home from Las Vegas and you have a few thousand bucks cash in your car, consider that money gone, and probably your car too, all owned by the government now as part of the War on Drugs. They don't have to prove you guilty of any crime, or even accuse you of a crime!

How many people, innocent or guilty, have been outright executed by police since the 70s using "OMG illegal narcotics" as a justification? How many tens of thousands of American citizens are in prison right now because they were caught carrying a plant that grows in the ground?

Wake the fuck up and let's put an end to this nonsense.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[g0bshiTe]

While I agree it's time to end it, I don't think those in power will want to give up their stranglehold on the cash cow it's become.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[ArmoredDragon]

The problem is that politicians aren't necessarily in the business of common sense, and police departments need their revenue, just like any other third world country. (And no, I'm not saying the US is a third world country, just that our police departments behave like one. Though third world countries may even be a little more honest, because they don't hide the fact that they need bribes to keep working.)

Remember how Chuck Schumer ordered the DOJ to seize their domain name, and was royally pissed when he found out that there was no domain name to seize? He doesn't give a shit about Silk Road being more safe than street dealers, rather in his own pathetic little mind, he seems to think that you can keep a hippie off of drugs by just hiding his joints. But in his defense, that is a common theme amongst his fellow democrats who also happen to think that banning guns will 100% keep them out of the hands of criminals as well.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Nrrqshrr]

Indeed, the problem is how, in order to garner support for the War on Drugs, anyone using drugs was for years painted as a complete and utter social failure. Your son is smoking pot? Holy shit you better call the cops on his ass or tomorrow morning he will be shooting speed!!!!
The fear of drugs was implanted so deep in our societies that anyone willing to call out the WoD on it's uselessness might as well claim he fiddles little children's weewees at night, he might generate a lighter backlash with this claim.

No politician in our PC-heavy climate would even dare to think about it.

Re: America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[AuMatar]

Its not possible to stop murder. So we should get rid of the laws against it, why bother if it's not possible?

Just because perfection can't be achieved doesn't mean something isn't worth doing.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Archangel Michael]

You can't end the War on drugs, any more than you can end the IRS, too many other industries require it now.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[tnk1]

I don't know. We did get rid of prohibition. Granted, alcohol was a vastly more accepted drug at the time, but I think what is required is simply what is happening now: people waking up to the issue of the War on Drugs and taking action to get things decriminalized.

I'm not a big fan of drugs. Far from it. Still, these people need to be getting treatment and not jail time.

Drugs should be legal, controlled, and taxed. That tax money should go towards helping to eradicate dependence on drugs and not go to the General Fund. It is amazing that we have taken this long to even start to come around, but I think it will happen.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Zero__Kelvin]

ROTFLMAO. I think it is both hilarious and sad when people talk about how they "put" someone in office as if the choice was an open one. That ignores the fact that your choices were already dwindled down to almost nothing up front. When you vote for a politician these days you pretty much have a choice of which half of the shit sandwich you want. I don't really call that freedom of choice myself. I can think of 100 people off the top of my head that would make a better president than Obama and Bush, but they were never an option.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Zero__Kelvin]

"No politician in our PC-heavy climate would even dare to think about it. "

Oh, I think one might at least. It is discussed quite openly in Vermont, and I seem to recall other states have legalized it as well. This suggests to me that more that one politician has been brave enough to speak truthfully on the subject.

Frankly I always knew that weed would be legalized and Windows would finally be recognized as the garbage it is by most qualified people in technology. I'm just surprised it has taken the former longer to transpire than the latter :-)

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Zero__Kelvin]

And also, because it's no war on drugs; it's a war on personal freedom, and that war is never going to end.

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I'm not a big fan of drugs. Far from it. Still, these people need to be getting treatment and not jail time."

Or, what with it being legal and all, they could just get their drugs! Most of the drug using population doesn't need rehab, and many others need it because they can't get enough because it is so expensive (e.g. Heroin addicts.)

I know. I know. You didn't say that! Perhaps you didn't mean to imply it either, I don't know. It seems like many people here think that a person who does drugs automatically needs help / rehab. Hilariously, perhaps, they may do so as they sip a glass of one of the most dangerous drugs on the planet.

Do you know why I want them to legalize all drugs? Well, let's see. To start with, the laws are completely anti-freedom, so it would be nice to see us go back to paying a modicum of attention to that little concept. It would be really nice to see people get help who need it, and those who aren't harming anyone left to live their lives. But the number 1 reason I want to see them legalized? Maybe I friggin' want to do some less dangerous drug than Alcohol, like Cocaine or Heroin for example, without having to risk getting ripped off, going to jail, or worse just because I don't want to do the worse drug I have ever tried, to wit, Alcohol!

Re:America's War On Drugs is a Failure

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I used to think that way, but I don't think anymore that this would be a good idea. There are certain drugs that are illegal for a damn good reason. "

That is a ridiculous thing to say. While I agree with you that Meth, for example, is a horrible drug and should be avoided, that continues to be true regardless of legality. Keeping it illegal does essentially nothing to stop people from doing it, and people who don't smoke it are very unlikely to say "Hey, I really like the way that guys teeth are rotted out! I think I'll try me some of that there Meth! if it becomes legal.

Govt Doesn't Care About User Safety

[CanadianRealist]

The "war on drugs" results in increased violence which increases the risk for everyone, not just the drug users. If the government was really concerned about the safety of drug users they could legalize and regulate everything and make it much safer. So far that hasn't happened.

I'm impressed that Dread Pirate Roberts paid a doctor to counsel people, I just don't think that the government will be.

Here in Canada the federal government tried to shut down a safe injection site in Vancouver. The site operated by the provincial government provided IV drug users with a safe place to shoot up. Everything need, except the drugs, was available there.. There were nurses present to offer help and advice, and to deal with any overdoses. The end result was (provably) fewer deaths among IV drug users. That made no difference to the federal government, they still wanted to shut the site down. Fortunately when they took the province to court, they lost - since there was proof of fewer deaths it was considered a health care issue, which is completely up to the province

Re: I'm confused.

[phantomfive]

They're not even necessarily logically contradictory. You can have a chained argument, because the prosecution must prove multiple things to demonstrate guilt. For example, they might have to prove:

A) The law was broken.
B) The law was broken by the defendant.
C) The law was broken in this country.

The defendant can say, the law doesn't cover the alleged act, and even if it did, the defendant wasn't the one who did it. Furthermore, the defendant wasn't even in the country at that time, so it doesn't matter.

The prosecution needs to prove all those points, so the defense has a chance to defend at all those points (IANAL).

Once again:

[Anonymous Coward]

95% of the horrible things caused by "drugs" are in fact caused by the drug warriors turning a medical problem (addictive personality, self-medication for other problems) into a criminal problem. See also: prostitution.

When you declare it - whatever it is - "illegal" you strip anyone who touches it from the protection of the legitimate legal/medical system. Especially if you have something essentially harmless like pot (Oh noes, a poor person might smoke a doob and be happy with their life for a night) that a lot of people will want to try, the result is that you'll eventually reach a critical density of people in areas who can't access the legal/medical system and as a result, society there goes to hell in a handbasket.

Basically no matter how horrible the drug is - seriously, fuck meth - prohibitionism is guaranteed to make matters worse. It doesn't resolve the fundamental problem that most drugs are medically bad for you (Unless you're stupid enough to buy into "just say no!" which works about as well as the other well known form of abstinence-only education). It prevents anyone/everyone involved from having access to a legitimate, peaceful legal system to resolve disputes. It prevents government regulation regarding quality control. The moralizing/stigmatization actively prevents people with a medical issue from seeking medical assistance. If you want to reduce the harm done to society by drugs, you couldn't get much further from a useful solution than prohibition.

But on the other hand, prohibitionism *does* go straight to the only honest impulse in all of religious fundamentalism: The hatred of anyone who seeks happiness in this life, doubly so if they are poor.

Re:Once again:

[OutOnARock]

really....you have never met anyone who smoked pot....currently a Schedule 1 drug?

Re:Once again:

[Opportunist]

Most voters are idiots. Easily swayed by the fear of the unknown and a rather diffuse urge to "protect their children", of anything and nothing. Control their children would be more apt, in most cases, but I don't even want to go there.

People are afraid of change in their life, and they are afraid of things (and people) they do not know. The more conservative and the less contact wanted with "the others", the more fear.

Alcohol was something they knew. And they knew that it ain't bad. They even had a drink or two themselves and did they die from it? No. Of course not. Did they go insane? No, again, of course not. And so the support for the ban was very low outside the overzealous self-proclaimed warriors of moral. It was even "cool" to break that law.

Not just among teenagers.

As you correctly identified, the main reason for the fear of drugs (and yes, I mean fear, it's not just rejection, it is fear) is that drugs are "the unknown", and that we've been told time and again that drugs are bad, bad, bad things. It doesn't have to be as hilarious as "Reefer Madness", but we've all had our share of "drug awareness".

Do you think it's a coincidence that the discussion of the legalization of Marijuana happens now that the "generation of love", the Hippies, are about to reach the age that just so happens to be about the age most top level politicians are in? The generation of politicians that is now in power is the same generation that smoked pot heavily during their teen years, and they learned that it's not really as their parents taught them, that it's not leading to the fall of humanity and civilization.

In other words, we'll probably see the legalization of Ecstacy around 2030.

It depends on how you measure failure

[rsilvergun]

It's been a massive success at keeping the lower classes in their place. Here in Arizona we've got multi-million dollar homes right next to slums. You can't do that without a good solid pretext to go in and bust heads whenever the poors spill over. Drugs are great for that. If you're poor chances are good you're taking some form of drugs to cope with the effects of poverty. If nothing else it's the closest to medical care you can get. Now, think about what happens when a few of those poors wander into the wealthy neighborhoods. Maybe they're there to use a park, or take a kid to one of the nicer schools. But odds are good one of 'em has a joint or two. And with our drug laws being what they are you're pretty much guilty by association. If you get a chance look up _why_ marijuana is illegal some time (hint: Migrant farm workers smoked it).

Then there's our whole private prison thing. As always, follow the money.

He also paid for the opposite.

[walkeraj]

Too bad he also paid to have people killed. Otherwise, he'd be an okay guy, and I'd petition for his release. Womp womp. Yes, I know nobody actually died, but he didn't, at the time. Still paid to have people murdered, reluctantly or no.