Hacker News Reader

Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

From NSWGreat's AMA linked in the article:

> The Darknet is amazing, its changing the drug scene for the better. Its taking away the violence and the dangers that are inherit with buying drugs.

Never thought about it this way, but as everyone is talking and writing endlessly about how taxi rides will be revolutionized by billion-dollar Silicon Valley start-ups I found this insight about the drug-market fascinating. Online selling of drugs probably means less deaths of young (mostly black) people fighting for "street corners" and also less people killed by the Mexican cartels.

View on HN

>Never thought about it this way

I'm trying to be better about reading too much into a single comment, but I think this means that you either have a long-held belief on the 'war on drugs' (one way or the other) or that you've simply never given it any thought as it may be a matter which you may feel does not concern you (it actually affects almost everybody).

In either case, here are a few materials that you might find interesting.

Milton Friedman on the 'War on Drugs' (1 of 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyystXOfDqo

Noam Chomsky on the 'War on Drugs': http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/199804--.htm

To be honest, it's been a while since I've read/watched either of the above, and there might be a good amount of overlap between them.

Along with keeping prostitutes and their customers safer:

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/redbook/

The Internet will always try to route around any roadblocks and form more efficient markets. Governments have to aggressive act to stop it from happening.

Citation needed. The cartels do plenty of killing regardless of the number of sellers on the street. Read books like El Narco, that document their intimidation of villages and towns into being involved in their grow and production operations.

This, to me, is much more "Hey, look at this, Drugs 2.0, no harm!" with little to no evidence to back it up.

Similar things have been said about Redbook, which was the prostitution equivalent. Discussing and "vetting" of customers allowed the (mostly) women to protect themselves better compared to soliciting "business" on street corners.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com