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Opioid Dealers Embrace the Dark Web To Send Deadly Drugs by Mail (nytimes.com)
Anonymous online sales are surging, and people are dying. Despite dozens of arrests, new merchants -- many based in Asia -- quickly pop up. From a report on the New York Times: In a growing number of arrests and overdoses, law enforcement officials say, the drugs are being bought online. Internet sales have allowed powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl -- the fastest-growing cause of overdoses nationwide -- to reach living rooms in nearly every region of the country, as they arrive in small packages in the mail (syndicated source). The authorities have been frustrated in their efforts to crack down on the trade because these sites generally exist on the so-called dark web, where buyers can visit anonymously using special browsers and make purchases with virtual currencies like Bitcoin. The problem of dark web sales appeared to have been stamped out in 2013, when the authorities took down the most famous online marketplace for drugs, known as Silk Road. But since then, countless successors have popped up, making the drugs readily available to tens of thousands of customers who would not otherwise have had access to them. Among the dead are two 13-year-olds, Grant Seaver and Ryan Ainsworth, who died last fall in the wealthy resort town of Park City, Utah, after taking a synthetic opioid known as U-47700 or Pinky. The boys had received the powder from another local teenager, who bought the drugs on the dark web using Bitcoin, according to the Park City police chief.
therefore, not newsworthy
It is not only not newsworthy, it is garbage journalism designed to twist the facts and manufacture outrage. The reason these drugs are "deadly" is specifically because of their illegality. A legal market with enforced medical regulation can solve the problem, and has done so in many jurisdictions, fixing both the overdoses and much of the collateral harm. In the meantime, these online markets are a safer source of opiates than buying them on street corners, so they are a net benefit to society.
In the US, about 16 deaths a month (~200/year) occur because the roads are built such that wildlife can get on them. A collision with some form of wildlife occurs, on average, every 39 minutes. Is the government panicking about this? Are they doing anything significant about it? No (notable exception, Indiana... they have IR wildlife detection on some highways, or at least they did at one point, it's been a few years since I drove through there.) And generally speaking, they won't. Because they don't care about you, or risks to you, or your children. Also because doing so wouldn't pump enough money into enough people's pockets, unlike the drug war, which is a nearly bottomless moneypot for all manner of interests. Also because its a lot harder to scare moms with as compared to OMG DRUGZ.
Q: How do you protect yourself against a drug overdose or addiction?
A: Don't take them, or, stop taking them.
Correcting the highways - protecting us - from our becoming victims of wildlife incursions, we need big money and big government. Because it's naturally pretty expensive, effort-intensive, and it's a serious problem.
Protecting ourself from drugs: We can do that ourselves, if we want to. If we don't want to, then we aren't being "protected" when we are interfered with... we're just being interfered with.
Liberty is, essentially as its fundamental character, that thing that that says we can do things that we are are informed about and which we personally, or consensually, choose to do; and that we are protected from others by the agreement that things we don't consent to, or are lacking understanding of, are not foisted off upon us against our will or by our lack of understanding.
Government's role is such protection is exemplified as education: striving to make the citizens reach an informed state about the world. It can also have a valid role in preventing non-consensual action, which ranges from being forced to do something, to running into an animal because they are not kept from the roadways as they should obviously be.
Please vote for people who will end the "war on drugs." It is the very antithesis of liberty. While you're at it, learn about drugs, and convey that information downstream to your kids and students and via any mentor relationships you may enjoy.
And throw some money at a low-IR camera for your vehicle. It could save your life. Because the government doesn't care to.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.