I was asked a couple of questions privately the other day and wound up going on a bit of a rant in response. Thought it would make a good forum post: "Can you talk a little bit about why (or whether) you feel like the recent rise in MDMA-related deaths make for a good argument for sites like Silk Road?" Of course it makes a great argument for Silk Road. People die from ecstasy because of overdose and low purity. These people don't know what they are taking and how much, but it's the best they can do because of all the damage prohibition has done to the market for drugs. Silk Road is repairing that damage. We are giving consumers choice and allowing the invisible hand to shape the market to their desires. One of their biggest concerns is purity and dosage, so it's no surprise SR has some of the purest drugs on the planet with well defined dosages and a community of support for people seeking harm reduction advise. The market works if given a chance. We have some of the most responsible, dedicated and brave individuals that make up our community. The vendors are heroes in our eyes. The discourse is enlightening. Growth has been phenomenal without a single dollar spent on advertising. You don't get that kind of result by being a control freak. You get it by holding yourself and others to a sane and liberating credo: That an action is moral in all cases except when it initiates the use of force or fraud. If that last sentence went over your head, read it again until you get its implications. Beyond that, Silk Road users are free to do as they please and we just do our best to support what they are already doing, and it's truly inspiring to see what they have come up with. "Do you feel like legalization would be an even better avenue, or whether the ideal scenario is to leave the drug market black, so that Phillip Morris doesn't come in and screw things up." Legalization is a whole other matter. First of all, I'm not at all opposed to competition. If the management and shareholders of Phillip Morris want to run an anonymous market online, they are free to do so just as I have, and I wouldn't stand in the way of the loosening or eliminating of drug laws so that we could all more easily provide the service Silk Road does. What I AM against is the agents of the state being involved at all. If they had simply left people to their own devices and allowed them the freedom to choose as I have at Silk Road, we'd have an economy so productive and robust it would be generating wealth for centuries to come, with more than enough for everyone. Instead we have giant war machines, surveillance states that are looking more and more like prisons, debt that won't be paid off for centuries if ever, oppression, strife, and hunger in varying degrees all over the world Humanity is at a critical juncture. Either violence will dominate the future of mankind, or peace will. The way of the sate is the way of violence, oppression and death. The way of the market is freedom, dignity and peace. If you understand this, it is your moral duty to protect the victims of the state in any way you can. Drug users have been victimize for too long and it's time everyone start treating them with some respect. I'm a drug user. I've smoked pot, I've tripped on shrooms, MDMA, and others. I never hurt a living soul any time I did either. If anything I was even more loving, empathetic, creative, bold, thoughtful, etc. than when sober. Of course legalization would be a tremendous win for drug users and freedom lovers and you'd have to be a cruel, cold person to still support the drug war at this point. Maybe when it got started you could plead ignorance, but now it's plain to see it has completely failed to meet its stated objectives and done immeasurable damage. There are people in this world who are starving and you are worried about whether I smoke a joint or not? That is insanity. Don't ignore it. Don't explain it away. Let that sink in. How many people have starved to death because the agents of the state use up all of the resources to fight endless wars, subsidize invasive and destructive projects and do their best to keep everyone else under their thumbs? There is nothing redeeming there. The little good they do eek out is just enough to get elected and avoid revolt. The damage they do is so immense most don't even see it, like water to the fish. I only hope enough of us wake up to this reality before it is too late to do anything about it. In short, Silk Road is an example of a moral culture where peace, cooperation and ethical competition are the norm, and violence and fraud are found only on the margin. This is opposed to the nation states of the world, where violence and fraud are used as a means to control their citizenry and to dominate one another. The people that make up human society at large need to adopt the Silk Road credo or we may all perish, or live under the thumbs of tyrants indefinitely.