zlacker

>>Ozarki+(OP)
I know he wasn't convicted of hiring a hitman, and I know the attempt didn't succeed, but he still tried to kill other people. Moreover, during a Bitcoin conference, he gave a live talk from prison via phone and still lied, claiming they planted the log on his laptop. A full pardon is ridiculous. It's unfair to so many people, including his partners like Variety Jones, also known as Thomas Clark. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure he won't do anything like this again.

>>I_am_t+km1
He did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.

He killed children.

- "During the sentencing hearing, Forrest heard from the father of a 25-year-old Boston man who died of a heroin overdose and the mother of a 16-year-old Australian who took a drug designed to mimic LSD at a post-prom party and then jumped off a balcony to his death. Prosecutors said the two victims were among at least six who died after taking drugs that were bought through Silk Road."

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-29/silk-road... ("Silk Road Mastermind Handed Life in Prison for Drug Bazaar" (2015))

It's squarely within the Overton window to impose extremely harsh sentences for people who sell heroin*. Most (?) Asian countries *execute* people who sell heroin. Trump himself has proposed, multiple times over the years, executing US heroin dealers[1,2]—which underscores the incredible degree of hypocrisy behind this pardon.

*(It's also within some people's Overton windows to contemplate the opposite of this, in a framework of harm minimization. I can't steelman this argument in the specific case of Ulbricht. Is it harm reduction to sell heroin? Is it harm reduction to sell fatal drugs to high-school age kids?)

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43465229 ("Trump urges death penalty for drug dealers" (2018))

[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/05/10/1152847242/trump-campaign-exe... ("Trump wants the death penalty for drug dealers. Here's why that probably won't happen" (2023))

>>perihe+4r1
> He did kill people. That factored into his sentencing[0]: the multiple overdose deaths from heroin and other things Ulbricht sold/facilitated/took a cut of the proceeds of.

> He killed children.

Nit: People died, who may not have died, because of his actions but he didn't kill them. Very few people are forced to take drugs.

>>that_g+ys1
It's worth noting that darknet sites have at every point in their history provided higher-purity drugs on average than what was available elsewhere[1]. It's hard to say whether or not more people used drugs because of the Silk Road. But without question, many people who purchased drugs on the Silk Road and survived, would have purchased those drugs elsewhere and died from impurities in the Silk Road's absence. I think there's an argument to be made that Ullbricht saved lives by purveying safer drugs.

[1] https://www.euda.europa.eu/publications/insights/internet-dr...

EDIT: Added citation for commenter who couldn't be bothered to use a search engine. Link contains links to multiple studies.

>>kerkes+ot1
The purity can also cause overdoses and deaths because they're not used to it being that pure so they took the same amount they would take with a less pure so took a substantially larger dose. Especially with opium based drugs that would be a big problem.

>>that_g+1B1
At a systemic level, this is dependent on what "normal" purity is for users. First-time buyers on darknet markets probably are more likely to overdose because they're used to less-pure products, although I don't have any statistics to back up that guess. But if people are buying on the darknet consistently, they'll be unlikely to overdose due to unexpected purity (though they might still overdose for other reasons).

I'll admit I haven't done much research on opiates specifically for the simple reason that I have never known any active opiate addicts (though, I did get trained to administer Narcan). However, in my understanding of drugs such as coke, MDMA, or speed/adderall, which are more common in the tech scene, higher purity is unambiguously a net positive. It's been a while since I was actually involved in the overlap of the tech/festival scene but when I was around that more, I made anyone I knew used drugs aware that I had drug test kits and would let you borrow them no questions asked. I can't claim I ever saved a life, but I can say for certain that ~30 people at a festival I went to ended up riding out bad trips in medical tents or being transported to the hospital due to MDMA cut with DOC, and none of the people I let borrow my test kits at that festival did.

>>kerkes+Vk7
My knowledge is mostly from living in an area where most addicts were heroin or other downer drugs. While there were a few who had problems with coke and speed most of the junkies I knew were on heroin. And when a strong package is released to the street people start dropping. There are even signs in prisons telling people to be careful when released because the stuff on the street is stronger than in prison.

If you look at who generally dies from drug overdoses it's largely opiate-based drug users. I once listened to two junkies who hadn't seen each other for quite a while talking and letting each other know about who died. They were mostly talking about overdoses, the conversation went on for about 30 minutes non-stop with different names non-stop. None of the cokeheads, eckyheads (MDMA), or speed freaks I knew ever had conversations like that.