Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: Buxton on October 21, 2012, 02:48 pm
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Do you worry about what your money is possibly funding?
The cocaine trade is notorious for funding dodgy cartels who really fuck over the people actually growing the plant (mind you, the war on drugs fucks them just as much, as they farmers can't grow anything else)
The heroin trade is just as bad.
I personally do have a guilty conscience when buy some items off the road but you can never know for sure where your money is going.
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The way I see it is that regardless where you get it from, it all comes from somewhere. More often than you'd think, with certain products, the source can be the same whether you buy from SR or on the street. If you want to partake, you've got to accept you may be funding some pretty shady characters and we all accept that to some degree whenever we make a purchase. The only way to be sure of origin and place your mind at ease is to grow/make your own product. Suffice to say, that's not always an option for some people and so you've got to accept the reality of the situation. Sadly, "If you want to make an omelette, you've got to be willing to break some eggs".
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Yeah, I've noticed that most bricks of coke on SR all have the same stamp so probably come from the same place.
I agree that most money will go to shady characters, but there are shady and then there are downright coldblooded motherfuckers!
But I suppose it's the same as buying diamonds, I'm willing to say that the vast majority of them are still coming from a fucked up African country with a lot of amputee children!
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its not your fault, individuals have a natural right to use drugs imo - its the governments to blame for driving the profits onto a black market and into the hands of now criminals rather than using it to fund aspects of society, like education and medicine, in order to reduce taxes - instead of wasting billions of dollars trying to fight a war that can never be won
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Do you feel bad every time you put petrol in your car knowing that the country it comes from is being occupied by corporations, or when you wear your nice trainers knowing that a chinese kid gets paid shit to make it for you, or maybe the iphones and ipads do you ever think of the suffering people go through to make them available ?
If you didn't put the money in their pockets, there's always someone else willing to do it. We on SR are just doing it in a more anonymous way.
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No I don't worry what my money is funding while buying drugs any more than I worry about the money placed in a collection plate funding child molestation by churches. People do bad things with legitimate money, so why worry about what happens with any of the money spent? I would imagine that when you buy gas, it is possible that a portion of that money goes toward funding terrorist activities against your own country, but we need gas if we want to drive, so we buy it. We don't HAVE to drive cars, but we choose to just the same as we choose to use drugs.
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Do you feel bad every time you put petrol in your car knowing that the country it comes from is being occupied by corporations, or when you wear your nice trainers knowing that a chinese kid gets paid shit to make it for you, or maybe the iphones and ipads do you ever think of the suffering people go through to make them available ?
If you didn't put the money in their pockets, there's always someone else willing to do it. We on SR are just doing it in a more anonymous way.
I suppose you're right. No trade has clean fingers. This is the problem being at the bottom of the food chain. You never REALLY know your source, if I did I wouldn't need this place. And if you did know your source and thought it was wrong to be giving them money, you could at least make the moral decision not to use them.
I'm probably thinking to much in to it! Long live the road though, it's probably the biggest freedom the internet has ever produced.
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
Seriously, MDMA is synthesized in labs not in the Colombian jungle or mountains of Afghanistan. As for opium and cocaine, the farmers tend to produce these things because that is their best option. Stop the drug trade and it's one less option for them.
Just the same way I don't typically feel bad about buying some Nike shoes that might be produced somewhere in a sweatshop. As long as none of the workers are being forced to work there, then I don't see a problem with it. IMHO people fret a little too much about these sorts of things. Heck the media has been going apeshits over the Foxconn factories in China (that makes a bunch of things for Apple) and as it turns out their workers' suicide rates are lower than the national average and conditions are superior to comparable factories in China.
But hey these revelations wouldn't satisfy our guilt complex, would they? Don't get me wrong maybe they use some coercive practices for some of the drug trade but I have a feeling that is in the small minority. Just my .02.
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has anybody noticed that plant based drugs (other than cannabis) are getting harder and harder to get...not only cocaine and heroin but drugs like DMT too...
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Every time you buy gas, you fund terrorism.
+1
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Everytime you pay taxes you are helping fund all sorts of awful shit.
Heck, if anything our money is better spent on this black market because at least less of it is going toward making bombs and killing Afghanis / Iraqis.
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Surely if you feel that guilty you wouldn't buy drugs then? It's a bit masochistic.
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Do you feel bad every time you put petrol in your car knowing that the country it comes from is being occupied by corporations, or when you wear your nice trainers knowing that a chinese kid gets paid shit to make it for you, or maybe the iphones and ipads do you ever think of the suffering people go through to make them available ?
If you didn't put the money in their pockets, there's always someone else willing to do it. We on SR are just doing it in a more anonymous way.
very well said.
basically if you live in Europe or North America every time you put your hand in your pocket and spend a cent you contribute to the suffering of those in the so called developing world who make your consumer life style possible. so yes I worry about what my money is funding. every time i pay tax.
almost every consumer good available in the west has a cost in human suffering, from sugar, to diamonds, to coffee, to trainers, to your mobile phone.
does anyone here actually know how their phone is made? they all contain rare metals such as coltan, all of which is mined in war torn African countries, predominantly DRC, research this and you will feel bad every time the phone rings!
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Every time you buy gas, you fund terrorism.
Well sort of, and more importantly you fund the illegal occupation of two countries by US and British military. (yes controversial, also true!)
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Everytime you pay taxes you are helping fund all sorts of awful shit.
Heck, if anything our money is better spent on this black market because at least less of it is going toward making bombs and killing Afghanis / Iraqis.
Couldn't agree more, at the risk of insulting the OP, I think he needs to go and do some reading up on how the global economy works, as he appears to have fallen for the ruse- "don't buy illegal drugs cos you contribute to horrible criminal baddies but all legitimate commodities are squeaky clean"
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
Actually devastating deforestation in Cambodia and other South East Asian countries where Camphor trees are illegally logged as a source of safrole, an MDMA precursor, the safrole sells for £1000s of pounds in Europe where it can be made into MD, but costs pence in the source countries, sorry, large scale rain forest destruction doesn't quite fit MDMA's image does it, bet lots of cute cuddly wuddly critters used to live in those trees too.
I'd like see fair trade sustainably harvested drugs on the road personally!
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What you don't know can't hurt you. .....too some degree at least.
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The really bad people receiving funding by the drug trade are a product of prohibition, not the users. All governments need to do to get rid of the shady freaks, and the murderous cartels and all sorts of scum is legalize and control distribution and tax it.
Blam now you are funding schools and fire departments instead of sleazy drug lords in Columbia or Afghanistan.
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i dont worry about it cus the little man will never win,the moneys end up all going to the same place..when you think really hard about it,you buy weed which funds "criminals" to buy/produce other drugs to make more profit and so on.now we have these big cartels from south america need to export the goods how do they do it?bribes of course no ones gonna try and smuggle hundreds of kilos without having people on the payroll to make sure these kilos go where their going and as the saying goes if the numbers big enough any1 can be bought so at the end of the day...drugs will never be legalized since so many government officals make alot more tax free money threw illegal drugs than they ever will from taxing it.thats my .2btc take from it what yous will,but the only criminals we are funding are the ones who are lying to us everyday and "promising" to win the war on drugs blah blah blah.
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it's hookers and blackjack isn't it?
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it's hookers and blackjack isn't it?
Bite my shiny metal ass!!! :P
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16k drug cartel related deaths in Mexico 2010
And they're not even on SR yet!
Paradise ;)
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On my end, your money is currently funding: More Products, More Lab Equipment, More Lab Time, Lunch, and my daughter's schooling. (Watch out, My lab equipment may one day become sentient and control my lunch and daughter and commit violent crimes?!)
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On my end, your money is currently funding: More Products, More Lab Equipment, More Lab Time, Lunch, and my daughter's schooling. (Watch out, My lab equipment may one day become sentient and control my lunch and daughter and commit violent crimes?!)
TERRORIST!
Seriously if these drugs were legal then the vendors wouldn't have to hide in the dark and we'd know more about their activities. But the government would rather drive these industries into the shadows of the black market.
The government is a joke (not a funny one either).
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If it doesn't concern you that your tax dollars are funding drone strikes in Pakistan...
In an ideal world production would be decentralized regardless of climate or location, thus reducing the opportunities for monopolization. Synthetics for example (MDMA etc) are difficult to monopolize.
We're getting there. SR is part of that. If you support SR by buying through it, you're bringing the day closer that vertically integrated horizontally distributed corporations will manage production instead of States and Cartels. Significant amounts of production will still happen in poorer countries, as it should, but there will be less violence since distribution and the financial network are anonymous, which will foster more cooperative and competitive behavior among market participants. Key elements will be building the postal network in the 3rd world and the use of autonomous vehicles.
This is not a way forward. This is only way there is. There is no other way. Eventually even LEO will come to that conclusion.
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Seriously?
If you live in the UK, or Europe or especially the USA you fund:
>Racist Apartheid state of Israel
>The use of DU Weapons (causing birth defects in children)
>The murder of over ONE MILLION INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS, MOST IRAQI
>ALL THIS BULLSHIT WAR, THE WAR ON DRUGS, BANKERS BONUSES
Thats what they fucking force us to fund just by paying VAT on everyday items
Honestly I cant conceive of any criminal gang, committing more disgusting crimes than our very own Governments.
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Sometimes I feel rather left out being non-revolutionary. It's quite funny not to be though.
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Do you worry about what your money is possibly funding?
The cocaine trade is notorious for funding dodgy cartels who really fuck over the people actually growing the plant (mind you, the war on drugs fucks them just as much, as they farmers can't grow anything else)
The heroin trade is just as bad.
I personally do have a guilty conscience when buy some items off the road but you can never know for sure where your money is going.
I have to say in all honestly that no not in the slightest, I am more concerned about what our wonderful governments do, they are the biggest terrorist organizations on the planet, look at the destruction the US and it allies has wrought on countries under the pretext of the war on drugs, they spray herbicide on farmers land in some South American countries to try to destroy the coca crop for fucks sake whilst also destroying all the regular food production and poisoning the land and it's people. That worries me a lot more than buying a gram or two on SR irrespective of where my coins end up. The current system creates the paradigm we see today, it is our governments who create the black market for drugs essentially sending billions of dollars into the hands of criminal organizations, it could all be changed tomorrow if there was a will to change the system, stop incarcerating citizens for health issues and promote harm reduction and education. Rant over 8)
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Sometimes I feel rather left out being non-revolutionary. It's quite funny not to be though.
Can you hook me up with an armoured car Lim?
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Sometimes I feel rather left out being non-revolutionary. It's quite funny not to be though.
Rite? Rite? Oh what to do with all that time NOT spent on trying to "uncover" the latest big conspiracy or railing how all governments are bad, or feeling fucked over by some insidious, sinister secret unnamed "groups"...
I guess we will have to make due with menial stuff like making bank and snorting coke off chick's asses. Aaaah how empty... :P
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If it doesn't concern you that your tax dollars are funding drone strikes in Pakistan...
In an ideal world production would be decentralized regardless of climate or location, thus reducing the opportunities for monopolization. Synthetics for example (MDMA etc) are difficult to monopolize.
We're getting there. SR is part of that. If you support SR by buying through it, you're bringing the day closer that vertically integrated horizontally distributed corporations will manage production instead of States and Cartels. Significant amounts of production will still happen in poorer countries, as it should, but there will be less violence since distribution and the financial network are anonymous, which will foster more cooperative and competitive behavior among market participants. Key elements will be building the postal network in the 3rd world and the use of autonomous vehicles.
This is not a way forward. This is only way there is. There is no other way. Eventually even LEO will come to that conclusion.
Eloquently put. Fucking thumbs up for economics! I majored in econ and LOVE looking at SR through those eyes...
Regarding the topic, the way I see it is that regardless of who I buy my drugs from, my money initially spent will end up in all sorts of places over time.
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Seriously?
If you live in the UK, or Europe or especially the USA you fund:
>Racist Apartheid state of Israel
>The use of DU Weapons (causing birth defects in children)
>The murder of over ONE MILLION INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS, MOST IRAQI
>ALL THIS BULLSHIT WAR, THE WAR ON DRUGS, BANKERS BONUSES
Thats what they fucking force us to fund just by paying VAT on everyday items
Honestly I cant conceive of any criminal gang, committing more disgusting crimes than our very own Governments.
This
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
Actually devastating deforestation in Cambodia and other South East Asian countries where Camphor trees are illegally logged as a source of safrole, an MDMA precursor, the safrole sells for £1000s of pounds in Europe where it can be made into MD, but costs pence in the source countries, sorry, large scale rain forest destruction doesn't quite fit MDMA's image does it, bet lots of cute cuddly wuddly critters used to live in those trees too.
I'd like see fair trade sustainably harvested drugs on the road personally!
If anyone can enlighten me I'd like some more info on where MDMA comes from and who we would "really" be funding...
In response to the OP, I could careless. I MUCH rather spend my coin on SR, get a QUALITY product from a trust vendor then some douche bag on the street who is going to see my shit. In the end maybe the money goes to the same place, maybe not, but I rather have it go to cartels who are getting me quality stuff. Someone has to produce the stuff and I definitely can't...
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
Actually devastating deforestation in Cambodia and other South East Asian countries where Camphor trees are illegally logged as a source of safrole, an MDMA precursor, the safrole sells for £1000s of pounds in Europe where it can be made into MD, but costs pence in the source countries, sorry, large scale rain forest destruction doesn't quite fit MDMA's image does it, bet lots of cute cuddly wuddly critters used to live in those trees too.
I'd like see fair trade sustainably harvested drugs on the road personally!
Actually mate, that's not entirely correct. There is a big demand for safrole for industrial use. Everything from pesticides to cosmetics. Some estimates say that less than 10% of the overall safrole production is diverted to MDMA production. Also, safrole isn't absolutely necessary to make MDMA. If there wasn't an established trade for that precursor already I'm sure manufacturers would choose a different chemical route, rather than starting to chop down cinnamon trees in Cambodia.
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
Actually devastating deforestation in Cambodia and other South East Asian countries where Camphor trees are illegally logged as a source of safrole, an MDMA precursor, the safrole sells for £1000s of pounds in Europe where it can be made into MD, but costs pence in the source countries, sorry, large scale rain forest destruction doesn't quite fit MDMA's image does it, bet lots of cute cuddly wuddly critters used to live in those trees too.
I'd like see fair trade sustainably harvested drugs on the road personally!
Actually mate, that's not entirely correct. There is a big demand for safrole for industrial use. Everything from pesticides to cosmetics. Some estimates say that less than 10% of the overall safrole production is diverted to MDMA production. Also, safrole isn't absolutely necessary to make MDMA. If there wasn't an established trade for that precursor already I'm sure manufacturers would choose a different chemical route, rather than starting to chop down cinnamon trees in Cambodia.
Fairy nuff mate.
Wasn't trying to suggest that all safrole is used for MDMA production, or that it's the only precursor, (pretty sure I didn't say that) merely trying to illustrate that there is a darkside to EVERYTHING, whether it's the sole cause or not MDMA certainly does contribute to deforestation in Cambodia to some degree.
And I'm sure we'd all like to see sustainably harvested, eco-friendly drugs on road wouldn't we!!
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Sometimes I feel rather left out being non-revolutionary. It's quite funny not to be though.
I'd say participating in this experiment called Silk Road is about as revolutionary as it gets...
(At least it is for this armchair anarchist) :P
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its not your fault, individuals have a natural right to use drugs imo - its the governments to blame for driving the profits onto a black market and into the hands of now criminals rather than using it to fund aspects of society, like education and medicine, in order to reduce taxes - instead of wasting billions of dollars trying to fight a war that can never be won
holy shit this x100000000
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Take PRIDE in your admirable participation in counter-economics. You are driving a free market force outside of the governments greedy reach. The only pure economy not being raped by scumbags who want to dominate and own it. Do not feel guilty! Your actions are worthy of praise and respect. YOU are a true revolutionary doing your part to free the world.
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Yes it does bother me. I don't like that the money spent on cocaine funds the war that is going on in South America. It also bugs me to no end that the electronics we buy today are made by economic slaves in China. I try to avoid it, but it's hard because you can't live without a phone or computer (I'd be missing out on the revolution), and you encounter a lot of smoke and mirrors when you try to find out where a product came from.
The harm caused by the drug trade can be stopped easily. However unfortunately many westerners don't support legalization and are blindly indifferent to the harm it causes in third world countries.
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I worry about what my tax money is funding. Evils perpetuated by the drug trade pale in comparison to the death & destruction metted out by the governments of the first world.
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I worry about what my tax money is funding. Evils perpetuated by the drug trade pale in comparison to the death & destruction metted out by the governments of the first world.
Finally, a rational man's perspective. :)
Well said. VERY true.
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
Actually devastating deforestation in Cambodia and other South East Asian countries where Camphor trees are illegally logged as a source of safrole, an MDMA precursor, the safrole sells for £1000s of pounds in Europe where it can be made into MD, but costs pence in the source countries, sorry, large scale rain forest destruction doesn't quite fit MDMA's image does it, bet lots of cute cuddly wuddly critters used to live in those trees too.
I'd like see fair trade sustainably harvested drugs on the road personally!
If anyone can enlighten me I'd like some more info on where MDMA comes from and who we would "really" be funding...
In response to the OP, I could careless. I MUCH rather spend my coin on SR, get a QUALITY product from a trust vendor then some douche bag on the street who is going to see my shit. In the end maybe the money goes to the same place, maybe not, but I rather have it go to cartels who are getting me quality stuff. Someone has to produce the stuff and I definitely can't...
There's a video on Youtube called Forest of Ecstasy. It shows where an actual raw ingredient, safrole oil, is produced. Not very long, but interesting none the less.
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If it doesn't concern you that your tax dollars are funding drone strikes in Pakistan...
In an ideal world production would be decentralized regardless of climate or location, thus reducing the opportunities for monopolization. Synthetics for example (MDMA etc) are difficult to monopolize.
We're getting there. SR is part of that. If you support SR by buying through it, you're bringing the day closer that vertically integrated horizontally distributed corporations will manage production instead of States and Cartels. Significant amounts of production will still happen in poorer countries, as it should, but there will be less violence since distribution and the financial network are anonymous, which will foster more cooperative and competitive behavior among market participants. Key elements will be building the postal network in the 3rd world and the use of autonomous vehicles.
This is not a way forward. This is only way there is. There is no other way. Eventually even LEO will come to that conclusion.
I wish I could find a wife with your brain. :)
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I only buy weed and psychedelics so if my money funds any kind of violence, it's not on my head, it's on the governments.
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No matter what the cartels will be making money and treating people the same way. Your purchases won't add much more damage to what is being done. Going to Macy's and buying your clothes is supporting factories treating their workers terribly. One person's purchase or lack there of won't make much of a difference. In fact, none at all.
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No mate, it don't bother me, when you understand how the world works, from top to bottom its pretty much unavoidable. I do what i can to avoid those that take the piss the most, tell others what i know and hope everything will change one day.
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Take PRIDE in your admirable participation in counter-economics. You are driving a free market force outside of the governments greedy reach. The only pure economy not being raped by scumbags who want to dominate and own it. Do not feel guilty! Your actions are worthy of praise and respect. YOU are a true revolutionary doing your part to free the world.
^This^
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However unfortunately many westerners don't support legalization
Legalization could only end badly in my eyes for many reasons;
Taxation which will only drive prices up
Top dog pharmaceutical companies will be buying never ending plots of land to cultivate which can cripple smaller dealers
Less land = less places for people to live
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I struggled with this question in recent years, which was one of the reasons (not the only one) that I quit certain substances. People can justify it any which way, but at the end of the day (only in my opinion) you are always linked, whether physically or energetically etc, to the decisions you make.
Likewise, I take a similar stance with other things in my life. I try not to purchase items made by slave labour (which is actually really difficult being that there are between 24 - 40 million slaves in the world right now), I buy organic local products, I trade for things instead of using money, I ride my bike as much as possible and I try to have a good idea about my suppliers, and if I give away any substance's to friends I make sure they are doing ok and they don't mess themselves or other people up.
But this path isn't for everyone, and we all have our own feeling on the issues :)
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What does the MDMA trade fund?
Hugs?
;D
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However unfortunately many westerners don't support legalization
Legalization could only end badly in my eyes for many reasons;
Taxation which will only drive prices up
Top dog pharmaceutical companies will be buying never ending plots of land to cultivate which can cripple smaller dealers
Less land = less places for people to live
Taxation isn't a necessary component of legalization. And the tax would have to be insane to match the drug dealers markup for assumed risk.
Large companies are far less efficient than smaller ones, they are a really unnatural occurance. The only reason they exist is because the government manipulates the market through regulation to favour large companies. In Hong Kong, which is the free-est country economically speaking, small business is king.
There's PLENTY of land, the majority of the world is empty. If it's sitting there doing nothing and you can find a good use for it, you should use it.