If we supplant all street markets for drugs with online ones, will we be trading drug/gang/gun related death with a higher incidence of drug related deaths from overdose/drug abuse?
I'd imagine there would be net less deaths in a world where Silk Roads were allowed to exist. Thats not to say that drugs should be made legal, but we shouldn't wage a 'war' on them. I know drugs aren't safe but the last time I checked, wars aren't either?
And theres no way sites like Silk Road aren't inevitable. Its a more attractive approach to being a street dealer and how many street dealers are there in the world?
I'd imagine in another decade one of the thousands of SR copy cats will have (likely accidentally) made all of the right decisions with respect to anonymity and be the defacto online drug hub.
Heroin is an unsafe drug, but impure heroin, injected with a needle that has been used and "cleaned" multiple times increases the dangers.
Making sure that heroin is hard to get makes people turn to other drugs. (Because addicts are addicted, and drug addicts take drugs.) One alternative to heroin is the Russian drug krokodil - desomorphine - often made using a variety of weird things.
I'd imagine there would be net less deaths in a world where Silk Roads were allowed to exist. Thats not to say that drugs should be made legal, but we shouldn't wage a 'war' on them. I know drugs aren't safe but the last time I checked, wars aren't either?
And theres no way sites like Silk Road aren't inevitable. Its a more attractive approach to being a street dealer and how many street dealers are there in the world?
I'd imagine in another decade one of the thousands of SR copy cats will have (likely accidentally) made all of the right decisions with respect to anonymity and be the defacto online drug hub.
Reminds of the opening scene of Layer Cake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5tzSks5lTI