[zanny]

This is the key point. He is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, pretty much, for running a website. Not for hurting anyone, not for even threatening to kill anyone - those charges weren't a part of his conviction - but simply by enabling the exchange of drugs he apparently should be locked away forever.

Go Team 'Murica....

[tzs]

Are you implying drugs don't hurt anyone?

Even the most ardent proponent of full legalization usually acknowledges that many drugs are very harmful--they just believe the people should be free to do things even if they are harmful to themselves.

I generally support decriminalization or even legalization, but I would be reluctant to allow internet sales. I'd require sales to be through licensed dealers and in person, so that an addict cannot completely cut themselves off from human contact. Internet sales make drugs too easy.

[civilian]

Licensed & regulated dealers (aka pharmacies) would be great.

In regards to the harm from drugs-- I'd add the obvious point that prohibition comes with a really high cost.

I recently did dry-january and I was really happy with the results of cutting back on my drinking. I wake up more rested, and had more energy in the evenings. I've been thinking that going totally dry might be a good thing to do in my life.

But would I make alcohol, one of the top killers in america, illegal? (ref: http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm ) Absolutely not. If you went to US high school you know why--- alcohol-dealing gangs took over. People turned to bad products (wood alcohol, that potentially included methanol) to get their alcohol fix. I imagine we needlessly jailed a lot of alcohol drinkers and pushers.

A more indepth analysis of alcohol prohibition: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html

Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much different than alcohol prohibition??

[mgleason_3]

US prison statistics should have everyone questioning what the hell our government is doing.

According to The Federal Bureau of Prisons: - 48.7% of prisoners are in for drug related offenses

Apparently a large number (12.3-27.3%) are for Marijuana related offenses.

See http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offens...

[krylon]

> Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much different than alcohol prohibition??

Because they have been told by the media, over and over, for decades. At least that's my theory. Consider how often the phrase "drugs and alcohol" is used in the general context of substance-based addiction.

Because it is socially accepted. Being a connoisseur of fine wines or whiskey is something many people consider sophisticated. Being a connoisseur of, say psychedelics or stimulants is, apparently a criminal offense.

[jensen123]

My theory is that the media tells people what they want to hear, in order to sell the most papers, page impressions etc. If they told stuff that the general public disagreed with, then they would probably lose readers/viewers.

Alcohol has a long tradition in the western civilization, so people feel somewhat comfortable with that. Other drugs probably seem very new and scary to the average guy.

[nitrogen]

My theory is that the media tells people what they want to hear, in order to sell the most papers, page impressions etc. If they told stuff that the general public disagreed with, then they would probably lose readers/viewers.

There is a feedback cycle, where the media both manipulates and responds to public opinion.

[tluyben2]

Not sure why people and especially lawmakers keep separating alcohol and other drugs. Alcohol is a drug and one of the more dangerous and addictive ones at that. If that is legal than so should a lot of other drugs be. And trying to make it illegal, as you say does not work; it makes it things worse.

[movetola]

Alcohol dealing gangs? We didn't have those at my high school, we'd just give a homeless guy extra cash to buy us a few 40s or a bottle of Jameson.

[wclax04]

I think he meant if you studied at a US a high school you would have learned about prohibition and the associated organized crime.

[jensen123]

> Why does the general public consider drug prohibition to be that much different than alcohol prohibition??

The average IQ of most western countries, including the US, is around 100. That's probably significantly lower than the average reader here on Hacker News. I'm not sure if a person with an IQ of 100 ever asks themselves intelligent questions like yours...

[SixSigma]

That the average is 100 should come as no surprise, seeing as IQ is defined so that the median score of tests on the population is 100.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient

[rat87]

May I reccomend http://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/top/ to you?

Also you're assuming some sort of strong correlation between IQ or some other measure of intelligence and good political judgement.

[tracker1]

I was recently in a conversation where it was pointed out that my rather cold analytic nature when it comes to these kinds of things puts me at odds with more emotionally driven decisions. Even without agreeing, I can see the point.

That said, in my mind short of violent action, I find it hard to see how having to serve more than two decades in prison is any kind of justice for any kind of non-violent crime. I also find that seeing the U.S. prison population at near 1% is rather depressing, and that most drugs probably shouldn't be criminalized and their use are more representative of other social issues at hand.

When black markets exist to the extent that the drug trade does, it usually indicates that the law is probably wrong. A black market for anything will always exist, but when you're starting to see it affect even 1% of the population as it does in this case, that should indicate that legally, the position should change in a way that reduces the need for such markets. However, time and time again governments try to push in the other direction, the U.S. revolution from England is in a large part based on this.

[rorykoehler]

There is no justice in this sentencing. The sentence is to set an example (words of the judge) which by it's very definition is unjust. Regardless of what you think of the laws relating to this case everyone deserves the same treatment under the law.

[rbobby]

> having to serve more than two decades in prison is any kind of justice for any kind of non-violent crime

Bernie Madoff got 150 years.

[jensen123]

IQ basically measures the speed of the brain, so it seems likely that there is some correlation between IQ and good political judgement. High IQ people basically have a greater capacity for thought.

[rat87]

> so it seems likely that there is some correlation between IQ and good political judgement

Considering that many smart people believe in opposing ideologies, many of those being extreme and some which I think are really stupid, I can't believe that. I'd consider empathy and open-mindedness much more likely to correlate with support for good policies. Also people tend to disagree on what policies are good. People disagree on what good basic principles are, what the likely outcomes are, and whether those outcomes are good or not. There is disagreement even among smart people, even after the stupidity of much of the drug war.

[dasil003]

> IQ basically measures the speed of the brain

IQ attempts to measure the speed of the brain, via a proxy designed by humans who probably on average think a bit highly of their own intelligence. No risk of cognitive bias there....

[fleitz]

No more than water does.

Even as a proponent of full legalization I know that as little as a few minutes spent in water can kill someone, and often does.

Why people are allowed to casually dive into this toxic substance is beyond me. No licenses, no regulations, practically any body of water you can find you're allowed to jump into totally unsupervised.

Most places don't even have signs warning people of the danger, and worst yet, many children practice a dangerous activity called 'swimming' in this substance often daring each other as to who can drop the highest from a rope into a potentially fatal body of water.

Also, once you start drinking it you need to find at least 4 litres of this a day to keep from going into water withdrawl, commonly known as dehydration, this can happen in as little as 3 days with out your daily fix.

[TeMPOraL]

There's a difference in degree and in kind. Water does not create addiction that forces you to consume it in amounts that are seriously harmful to your health.

It's not true that areas unsafe for swimming are not marked - they are; moreover, there's both infrastructure in place to increase safety (e.g. lifeguards) and a significant amount of effort put towards educating people about the dangers of things like jumping into the water in a potentially unsafe place.

But that's all beside the point. Laws and rules do not exist in vacuum, and humans are not spherical cows of uniform density. Time and again history has proven that most people can handle exposure to water safely, while they can't handle being exposed to hard drugs. You can blame this on individual stupidity, but people don't have perfectly free will, and if this stupidity predictably touches big fractions of a population, it's time to mitigate it.

[fleitz]

Also, can you please avoid drinking water for the next 4 days... I think you might be addicted, if you're not addicted you won't show any signs of withdrawl.

Addicts suffering from water withdrawl often drink amounts that are unsafe for their health which is why marathon runners have to be given water adulterated with mind altering metals like sodium and highly toxic chlorine to make it safe for them to drink.

It's kind of insane that water addiction would drive people to ingest water in such vast amounts that you'd have to add chlorine and sodium to make it safer.

If you think places unsafe for swimming are marked I would hazard a guess that you haven't spent much time in the outdoors.

[rtpg]

A property of addiction includes the implicit notion that you consume much more than you need, to a point of actively harming yourself.

We talk about food addiction when people eat way too mcuh, not when people eat a proper amount to survive.

[Riseed]

> It's not true that areas unsafe for swimming are not marked - they are; moreover, there's both infrastructure in place to increase safety (e.g. lifeguards) and a significant amount of effort put towards educating people about the dangers of things like jumping into the water in a potentially unsafe place.

It's not true that products unsafe for smoking are not marked - they are; moreover, there's both infrastructure in place to increase safety (e.g. physicians and filters) and a significant amount of effort put towards educating people about the dangers of things like using tobacco in a potentially unsafe manner.

I believe that time and history has proven that prohibition solves little, where infrastructure to increase safety and effort put towards educating people results in "less harm" -- a much better outcome for all. Some people will make a harmful choice (e.g. heavy smoking, fast food diet, sedentary lifestyle, using chainsaws alone), but society as a whole should not be punished for the choices of the few.

[fleitz]

As far as hard drugs, Ron Paul has done excellent surveys amongst hardcore Republicans (who generally say they'd do drugs if allowed) and found that most of them would not do heroin if given the choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9n4nwxgaQg

[itistoday2]

> There's a difference in degree and in kind. Water does not create addiction that forces you to consume it in amounts that are seriously harmful to your health.

Neither do most drugs, especially most illegal drugs.

Many legal drugs do (the most addictive of all being nicotine), but that also doesn't matter and is besides the point.

These are health issues, not criminal issues.

[tzs]

> No more than water does

The poster above me implied that Ulbricht's actions did not hurt anyone. Hence, harm from drugs is relevant, because Ulbricht was selling drugs.

Ulbricht was not selling water, so whether or not water is harmful is completely irrelevant to my point, which is that Ulbricht is not going to jail for "running a website".

[SunShiranui]

Ah yes, the psychoactive and carcinogenic properties of water are well known!

[timsally]

Do you apply this logic to alcohol as well? It's a drug and there are many addicts, so similar to other drugs I don't think it should be sold online. Where do you come down on that? I only ask because many people implicitly omit alcohol when discussing drugs, even though it is one.

[tzs]

I'd be reluctant to allow it, just like with other drugs. As with other drugs, if it can be shown that a particular drug is not overly addicting, then I'd be fine with that drug being sold online (but only from licensed and regulated dealers, with enforced quality standards).

So, online beer would probably turn out to be OK, as would online marijuana.

Cigarettes are an interesting case. Nicotine is pretty high up on the addicting list, but experimentally even heavy smokers don't seem to consumer so much that they ruin their lives the way, say, a heroin addict might. Probably because cigarettes don't really impair your functionality. So probably they should be allowed online.

[homulilly]

Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those.

I agree that drug sales should be regulated but that doesn't in any way make sentencing someone to life in prison for running a website any less fucked up.

[timsally]

> Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those.

The following applies only to the US. Since 1968 you need a license granted by the federal government to sell guns (https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/who-can-obtain-federal-firea...). The law allowing you to carry a firearm was passed in 1791. Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one.

When thinking about this issue, I've found the following thought experiments useful:

(1) Should someone who ran a multi-million dollar illegal gun operation get life in prison, even though unlike drugs, the right to own firearms is explicitly protected by the Constitution?

(2) Should someone who ran a multi-million dollar website selling only weed in legal venues (Colorado, etc) be convicted of any crime, never-mind sentenced to life in prison, even though it is against federal law?

Personally I answer (1) as YES and (2) as NO, and place Ulbricht's conduct significantly closer to (1) than to (2).

[rascul]

> Driver's licenses have been around since 1899. You can't sell a car to someone without one.

You most certainly can. And it's completely legal. Driver's licenses have nothing to do with buying and selling vehicles. Some (all?) dealers might not do it, but there's other reasons besides legality for them to worry about.

[timsally]

Interesting, I stand corrected. That said, to legally carry out the act with a car that might actually hurt someone else (driving it), you need to be both licensed by the government and compliant with a suite of regulation (insurance, etc). So I think the point still stands.

[baddox]

I would answer No to both.

[jsmthrowaway]

That dichotomy is clever, almost convincing, and plainly obvious in its manipulative structure.

[timsally]

How about we both draw out our positions more explicitly? I present two scenarios where someone is selling a harmful product to people-- one in which someone is selling a product that US citizens have an unassailable right to in an illegal fashion and one in which someone is selling a product that people have a weaker claim to in a legal fashion. I support jail for the former and not the latter simply because my position is that the peoples' right to have product is irrelevant, it's whether you are selling it legally or not. If you're selling someone harmful in an illegal manner and you do multi-million dollars of business per year you should go to jail for a long time, even if the people have a right to said product.

[Zancarius]

I'd greatly appreciate if you could elaborate, because I'm finding myself confused as to what you're getting at, and I have no idea which point you're addressing. I think I follow, but I'm not convinced my interpretation is correct.

Honestly, I can't tell if this block is because I'm conflating the context of the greater discussion (the Ulbricht trial) with the more nuanced points of timsally's comment.

Thanks!

[tzs]

> Cars and guns also hurt people but pretty much anyone can sell those

When car or gun buying addiction becomes more then a negligible problem, you'll have a terrific point.

[jononor]

90+% of American households own cars. Approximately 30'000 die in car crashes every year. I'd say the US is addicted to cars.

[roel_v]

Under a nonsense 'definition' that nobody uses. Sure I can make any point if I get to redefine words any way I want.

[pbhjpbhj]

FWIW "addicted to cars" has results with headline in major news outlets - it's a common trope.

In human geography terms it simply means that giving up cars is a supremely difficult thing for society to do - particularly in some Western areas that are designed around the idea that all people have cars available [cheaply].

This has enough similarity to addiction that people use "addicted" commonly like this - "I'm addicted to coffee" or "I'm addicted to chocolate" usually just means you'd find it hard to give it up. [I don't know if clinically those statements are true for some though.]

As it happens I've given up alcohol, chocolate, coffee, videogames, and cars at various points and the car was definitely the hardest requiring the most change in my lifestyle.

[homulilly]

Well, gun violence is definitely a pretty big problem in the united states. More importantly, banning or restricting gun ownership is effective at reducing gun related injury and death. The same cannot be said for drug prohibition (see: American alcohol prohibition, Portugal's drug decriminalization).

[bsder]

So many people were convinced that "Obummer is gunner take r gunz" that they created a bullet shortage that lasted for years.

Um, sounds like like addiction to me.

[simoncion]

Heh.

It was military hardware that was using those bullets, my friend. :)

[bsder]

I somehow doubt the military was buying up all the .22 bullets ...

If I want to protect myself, I'm going to want a bullet with quite a bit more punch, thanks.

[akshatpradhan]

If drugs hurt people, it should be treated as a medical issue and not a criminal issue.

[baddox]

Drugs don't do anywhere near as much harm as drug prohibition.

[itistoday2]

> Are you implying drugs don't hurt anyone?

Drugs, like spoons, hurt people. Some other items that kill people include:

Cars. Motorcycles. Trees. Water. Too much air. Too little air. People. Dogs. Sticks. Bath tubs. Guns.

In the end, drugs are no more inherently harmful than any of the items listed above.

What usually kills people, however, is not drugs, but things associated with drugs that exist only because we have decided they should exist:

- Drug gangs and cartels and the violence associated with them are the product of US government policy, not drugs.

- Drug overdoses are the product of US government policy, not drugs (in most cases), because especially with illegal drugs people don't know what they're getting or how much of it or how to use it.

It is primarily we that kill people. Look around you. If you see a face that supports the drug war, that person is partially guilty in all drug related deaths.

The irony of this case is that Judge Katherine Forrest is now much more responsible for the drug-related deaths she is trying to prevent.

[pkinsky]

>Yeah, I remember reading news stories all the time about how Canadians overdose on maple syrup or how Egyptians overdose on water. Truly, all drugs are just as innocuous as air and puppies.

Maple syrup may not have been a good example http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/statistics

[itistoday2]

I think you meant to reply to mpyne, but that is a very amusing observation. :)

[vacri]

Nice rejoinder to 'Canadians overdose on maple syrup' - a page about a generic disease that never mentions maple syrup nor Canadians, nor dosage.

Here is an in-kind rebuttal to your link: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-like-turtles

[rtpg]

Do you seriously think people wouldn't OD on drugs if there were legal sources?

People ruin their lives pretty well currently with highly addictive drugs, and I don't see how increasing supply would stop that from happening.

You can be clever that sticks kill people all you want, but that's completely sidestepping why people are worried about drug legalization: many drugs have extremely well documented negative effects on people, and these effects end up affecting others as well (hence "no smoking in public places'-style laws), and it has a real cost to society (hospitalisation, and just the human cost). Last I checked Sticks aren't that costly to civilisation in recent times.

Trying to be clever with semantics won't convince anyone of anything.

[wz1000]

> People ruin their lives pretty well currently with highly addictive drugs, and I don't see how increasing supply would stop that from happening.

I don't see how prohibition and the War on Drugs prevented them from happening too. All that was achieved by the War on Drugs was a massive waste of taxpayer money[0], the creation of a large, organised, violent and powerful criminal underground[1], filling up of prisons with non-violent offenders[2], denying treatment to millions of addicts and treating them like criminals, and the violation of the rights, freedoms and liberties of large numbers of innocent people[3].

[0]-

1) http://cdn.thewire.com/img/upload/2012/10/12/drug-spending-v...

2) http://www.drugpolicy.org/wasted-tax-dollars

3) http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on...

[1]- http://www.countthecosts.org/sites/default/files/Crime-brief...

[2]- http://www.ibtimes.com/drug-offenses-not-violent-crime-filli...

[3]-

1) http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/balko_w...

2) http://www.tucsonnewsnow.com/story/26290903/police-militariz...

3) http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10826084.2015.1...

[Flimm]

What would you say the impact of the prohibition and the war on drugs have had on the number of people who are negatively affected by drugs? That must be considered too.

[path411]

It's pretty obvious that drugs being illegal isn't stopping people from OD'ing, so I don't understand how this can be used as an argument against legalizing drugs.

[rtpg]

I'm not arguing against legalizing drugs, I'm saying GP's argument is no good.

If you actually want to convince people on the fence (GP's comment is clearly meant only for the audience of those already convinced), it's more important to actually use convincing arguments. "Sticks hurt people" convinces no one.

[mpyne]

Yeah, I remember reading news stories all the time about how Canadians overdose on maple syrup or how Egyptians overdose on water. Truly, all drugs are just as innocuous as air and puppies.

[mkramlich]

from the historical record I'm pretty sure that the USA gov has caused/allowed more drugs/chemicals/radiation/weapons to cause more harm/deaths to innocent/civilian people than Ross ever has. I don't see any US President or Senator, etc., in jail, because of that.

example: drop tons of Agent Orange on the lands/people of Vietnam? Just an oopsie! and they move on, wipe their hands clean. People dead and children deformed. Oopsie! Our mistake. Next meeting.

[iyn]

Exactly. What about "There must be no doubt that no one is above the law"? Every time I learn more about history, politics etc I'm more and more frustrated. The system/law doesn't work the way it is presented and people/institutions that are "in charge" have an incentive to left it the way it is (otherwise 50% of them should be in jail).

Any ideas what can we do? I like projects that try to give more power to the people (like DemocracyOS), but I think it's rather kind of a bugfix for a badly designed system - it's important to try to improve it to keep it somehow working in the short term, yet (IMO) the whole architecture is broken and won't work in the long term when everything changes so fast...

[eeeeeeeeeeeee]

Give me a break. I also think the punishment was excessively harsh (the murder-for-hire stuff likely played a role even though he was not convicted on that), but saying he is getting life in prison for "running a website" is a huge oversimplification of the ruling.

That being said, I think this is the federal government showing, through the courts, how terrified they are of people running things they cannot control. Bitcoin terrifies them. They want to send a very clear message.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

He didn't just "enable the exchange of drugs". He knowingly hid that he did so, and made bucketloads of money off it.

[psykovsky]

What are those bucketloads worth when the only time you get to spend them are when you buy assassinations from dirty undercover DEA agents?