Personally I found it interesting and thought-provoking, which is what I want from HN content. If I'd read the article outside HN it probably wouldn't have occurred to me to submit it here, but I'm happy that somebody did.
edit: Since nobody else has, might as well pull out the usual response to this sort of comment too - here's from the HN guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." So really the question is did you not find it interesting?
Anti-drug trade is also multi billion dollar industry.
Seeing how different modes of business work is interesting. This guy raises an interesting point about selling heroin. He does it to earn a bit of extra money to buy drugs. But if he has enough money to buy spare heroin then he doesn't need to sell it because he has the thing he needs.
Also, HN readers enjoy thinking about puzzles and about incentives and disincentives. Stopping criminal gangs earning millions from drugs; reducin harm from drug use; avoiding criminalising drug users; saving money; - these are all interesting and complicatey entangled problems that would make the world a nicer place to live in.
A lot of crime was (still is?) driven by the need to earn money for drugs.
HN takes an inordinate interest in health matters, physical and mental. This is pushing the envelope of relevance, though, yes. Your own mental state cannot be determined by your current correctness.
edit: Since nobody else has, might as well pull out the usual response to this sort of comment too - here's from the HN guidelines: "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." So really the question is did you not find it interesting?