[BearGoesChirp]

Buying drugs can fund actions far worse than just creating drugs. From human slavery (drug mules) to murder. Some of the other things on that list are bad not because the actual item being traded is bad, but because of what the trade enables. I'm not seeing a significant difference between the markets in this regard, except for popularity.

Compared to the example you gave, where no one is harmed and no further harm is caused or funded by people being gay.

Edit to specify that this doesn't happen in every drug transaction.

[valuearb]

Buying drugs doesn't fund those actions. Making drugs illegal does, just like when Prohibition started murderous gang wars, gave us the highest murder rate in modern history, caused thousands of deaths from adulterated spirits, and funded the modern mafia.

[robotresearcher]

Murder is illegal. But somehow the profits from tens of millions of murders aren't injecting cash into a vast underground economy. It's the money that does that.

[TylerH]

Except for the small problem of money not being sentient.

[robotresearcher]

It's the (people choosing to inject their) money that does that.

Fixed.

[BearGoesChirp]

Buying drugs does fund those actions. Drugs being illegal are a major reason why, and why I support legalization. But that doesn't excuse anyone currently making a purchase today.

Think of it this way, illegal images could be produced by advanced CGI, but aren't because that tends to be just as illegal. That doesn't excuse anyone who consume images not produced by advanced CGI.

[valuearb]

People have the right to control what goes in their bodies. I don't have the ability to see if my weed is "violence free", because drug prohibition took that away. You can't hold me responsible for violence among marijuana cartels if you don't give me a clean source for my marijuana.

It's like saying encryption is used by terrorists, so if I buy encryption I'm indirectly supporting terrorism.

[Retra]

You can be held responsible. You don't have a right to obtain a substance just because you want it. It doesn't matter if it "goes in your body" or not. That's not how rights work. You have to justify the value to society.

[valuearb]

It's exactly how rights work. Freedom of speech doesn't have to justify it's value to society, it's an innate right that's not up for vote. Google the founding fathers and natural law.

[Retra]

If freedom of speech didn't have to justify its value, you wouldn't need legislators to enact it as a law. Legislators aren't going to legislate without justification, and they shouldn't.

[msla]

There isn't a country on Earth run on "natural law" or anything close to it.

[threeseed]

You need to stop with the metaphors because they are ridiculous and wrong.

Buying drugs directly funds people who manufacture drugs.

Buying encryption does not directly fund terrorists.

[msla]

If you can trace the money flow from the drug user to the cartel, that user funded the cartel.

There's no such flow from people who buy encryption software to terrorist groups.

[Garvey]

Buying "some drugs" from "some people", "might" fund those actions.

Bit of a generalisation to apply it to every drug sale ever...

[BearGoesChirp]

Doesn't this holds true of the other crimes we were talking about taking place on the dark-net as well? Maybe not at the same rates, but even weapon sells don't definitely mean someone is coming to harm by that specific sell.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

Paying taxes contributes to legally dubious actions such as drone strikes at weddings. Buying certain types of cheap clothing or manufactured goods supports slave like conditions for some workers. Buying beef and other food products contributes to deforestation, depletion of fishing stocks and other things destructive to the environment. Going to a strip club supports human trafficking and sex slavery. Buying diamonds and rare earth metals necessary for tech devices supports bloody, endless civil wars. The drug wars raging in Mexico pale in comparison to the atrocities and Heart of Darkness horrors happening still in the Congo, with its rich supplies of coltan.

Don't think that you can claim innocence because you are following the law.

It's more accurate to say that government prohibition fund actions far worse than just creating drugs, human slavery (drug mules) to murder.

[oh_sigh]

You should say "sometimes buying drugs goes to fund actions..."

I buy my marijuana from a friend who grows a few plants in his basement. How exactly is that funding slavery and murder?

[BearGoesChirp]

I've updated to be more specific.

Are such levels of specificity required when talking about other illegal transactions which have a potential to be victimless?

[oh_sigh]

I don't see why not....pointless hyperbole doesn't help with many points.

[blubb-fish]

where exactly are those slaves working and murders taking place along the production and distribution of LSD?

same question with regard to home grown weed?

please, elaborate ...

[BearGoesChirp]

It promotes growth of the marketplace which also allows buying/selling of drugs that do involve victim crimes. If the market was limited to safely produced/trafficked drugs, it would be different. One might even make the argument that shutting down a market that only allowed victimless drugs end up causing harm.

[blubb-fish]

by posting anonymously on HN you are promoting the internet and it's ungoverned nature which allows for consumption and distribution of c.p.

[threeseed]

This is one of the most stupid comments I've ever seen on HN.

[eecc]

Ah so you don't buy H&M? They happen to promote a market in Bangladesh where people tend to literally die in a fire (go google it.)

So, what's left of that syllogism of yours?