Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: daddyaddy on June 15, 2012, 08:16 pm
-
TL;DR at the bottom.
As an adult over the age of 30 who has been through multiple treatments for cancer... I deal with different pain from this damn disease and from side effects of different medications. I had a heart to heart with my oncologist about marijuana. Knowing if I lived in a different state medical marijuana would be ideal, I just asked him about good/bad/etc. He was honest and gave me his official disclaimer and a "say no to drugs" sticker, but also said he has had patients that admitted to use. Next few appointments I started bringing it up with some of the other patients I have gotten to know, and that's where I found SR.
Fast forward a few months... I've ordered 5 or 6 times and I have never felt more relieved/relaxed then after an edible. Of course then there is the expense of something not covered by insurance. This isn't a rant about price... supply/demand sets that. Not my point at all :-). Adderall just happens to be a medicine I take regular, so it clicked... essentially trade my adderall for edibles. I read through the sellers guides/faq/etc. I setup this new account, and then I click to sign up and it's ~25BTC. As someone who doesn't plan on selling 25BTC/month along with the commission... that's a pretty big chunk. Which leads to the real question:
TL;DR - Has SR ever considered a small time seller option? Maybe a limit of 2-3 listings a month? a limit on $ sold? Possibly a 1% higher commission? (other ideas I'm sure could be considered).
-
Seller fee weeds out scammers and those with devious plans that Lim will pounce on.
I don't find this beneficial to SR personally. Those that will deal here: spending time packaging, making sure the security of the seller and buyer and of the highest amount, and selling quality product, simply should be able to pay $150 in nearly all cases.
Just my opinion.
-
This seems like a good idea, it should be a very restricted selling ability.
I see that it could be of use to provide more security for the standard buyer to exchange their ukash and other vouchers for actual bitcoins. The buyer could just pop up a listing for the voucher and anyone can exchange it for coins. I think this is how things on the black market are done and it seems better than what happens here.
Its true that the bitcoin venders would loose out, but nothing stops them buying the vouchers. More importantly it fits better with the anarchical philosophy that SR claims to subscribe to.
maybe only allow buyers that have made more than 30 transactions, or something similar.
-
The price helps stop scammers.
-
I understand the fee is used to avoid scammers from running wild, but as was shown a few months ago... if someone wants to scam, they're gonna scam. (please don't make this thread... "that thread" from my comment).
What I'm suggesting is a sellers account with limited selling opportunities. Pulling numbers out of my ass, but lets say for 5btc you would be allowed 2 listings a month with maximum price of 15btc each at 12% commission. Is it worth spending ~30$ to be able to scam ~50?
The people using the small-time-seller accounts wouldn't be making enough profit to do anything other then re-spend that money on SR giving commission on that purchase too.
now that I think about it that's a pretty shitty example... I want better rates! :-P haha. really though, I'd consider something like that, and I doubt I'm the only one.
-
IMO you either have to be in it to win it or not at all. Separates the wheat from the chaff.
-
The vendor fee may seem high, particularly for those who are only planning on selling small amounts of prescription meds or whatever, but it is a one-off fee, rather than a recurring cost. You stand to make your money back quickly enough, and you can always use your account to list other things that you may have access to in future. Look at it as an investment opportunity.
Now, to the OP: Considering your cancer issues, and your need for good meds, have you ever given any thought to growing?
-
If he needs it in the hear and now then growing may take too long. Also OP if you are unwell and you live in an area with harsh laws I would think very carefully before embarking on a grow-op because if you are caught the stress this will put on you will make your condition worse. I know this is something I would definitely take into consideration.
If you are using SR for health reasons then IMO you can't put a price on your health. 25BTC is minor if it will help you fight your illness or at least alleviate the suffering it gives you.
Whatever you wish to do, good luck and I hope you are well again soon.
-
If he needs it in the hear and now then growing may take too long. Also OP if you are unwell and you live in an area with harsh laws I would think very carefully before embarking on a grow-op because if you are caught the stress this will put on you will make your condition worse. I know this is something I would definitely take into consideration.
If you are using SR for health reasons then IMO you can't put a price on your health. 25BTC is minor if it will help you fight your illness or at least alleviate the suffering it gives you.
Whatever you wish to do, good luck and I hope you are well again soon.
I was reading that in the UK electricity companies now have to report excessive usage to the Police in case a householder is using all that juice to grow cannabis - I also saw on TV that Police helicopters will also use infra red to see large amounts of heat coming out of a house so they can swoop in, it's nightmarish! Wouldn't it be better to rent a plot of land somewhere and grow it in a green house or am I being terribly naive?
To the OP ; as UKGrower says it's a one time fee, so it's not the end of the world if you have to pay it up front - surely you plan on making more than 30 Bitcoins out of this overall? Otherwise it's hardly worth your bother.
V.
-
If he needs it in the hear and now then growing may take too long. Also OP if you are unwell and you live in an area with harsh laws I would think very carefully before embarking on a grow-op because if you are caught the stress this will put on you will make your condition worse. I know this is something I would definitely take into consideration.
If you are using SR for health reasons then IMO you can't put a price on your health. 25BTC is minor if it will help you fight your illness or at least alleviate the suffering it gives you.
Whatever you wish to do, good luck and I hope you are well again soon.
I was reading that in the UK electricity companies now have to report excessive usage to the Police in case a householder is using all that juice to grow cannabis - I also saw on TV that Police helicopters will also use infra red to see large amounts of heat coming out of a house so they can swoop in, it's nightmarish! Wouldn't it be better to rent a plot of land somewhere and grow it in a green house or am I being terribly naive?
To the OP ; as UKGrower says it's a one time fee, so it's not the end of the world if you have to pay it up front - surely you plan on making more than 30 Bitcoins out of this overall? Otherwise it's hardly worth your bother.
V.
Yeah you get round this by using portable generators. ;)
Also you can disguise the heat coming out of houses by using heat reflecting material and other things (I don't know much about it, I know little-to-nothing about puff or farming it) or if you have a basement that is by far the best option or doing it in a block of flats. You are best using an industrial unit because those kinds of buildings have a reason to generate heat.
I have never been that interested in selling/growing. It always seems like a ballache to me for very little reward so I never got into it other than selling a few oz here and there when I was young. I found ecstasy pills quickly though and found I was much better at pills and powders than plants. Also (and no offense to people who smoke puff here) I fucking DETEST dealing with stoners. They are always late, they try and fuck you around, they always moan and just get on my tits. I'm sure this was just my bad luck but more than once a sale turned into a smack in the mouth.
-
Yep, you make some good points Lim. I forget sometimes that it took me a bit to build my confidence levels up for growing, and to learn to deal with the paranoia. I reckon that most weed users would be able to grow their own to various degrees in terms of cost and space requirements, unless you are living with parents or an anti-drug wife or something, but it can take it's toll on your stress levels in the early days. Most of the fears are usually unfounded if your setup is implemented properly and you've kept quiet about it, but it takes a while to get comfortable with it.
Some personality types are better suited to growing than others though. Worriers, highly strung people, people who draw regular cop attention etc. should definitely think twice about growing.
It is true that growing takes a long time. Even if you set up a grow today, it would be several months before you have weed in your hands, so it wouldn't be an immediate help. However, once you get that first harvest, it can pretty much pay for itself from that point on.
The vendor account and prescription meds idea will work. My suggestion was more something to supplement it, with the view that eventually the OP could not only provide his own meds, but also produce something more profitable than his current supply, and really make the vendor account worthwhile.
I was reading that in the UK electricity companies now have to report excessive usage to the Police in case a householder is using all that juice to grow cannabis - I also saw on TV that Police helicopters will also use infra red to see large amounts of heat coming out of a house so they can swoop in, it's nightmarish! Wouldn't it be better to rent a plot of land somewhere and grow it in a green house or am I being terribly naive?
Most of the stuff in the press is pure propaganda, meant to scare people away from growing because it is otherwise quite hard to detect. Most people who get caught are informed on, or fail to take basic security precautions like proper filters. The helicopter thing gets mentioned a lot in the press, but its 99% bullshit, and the other 1% doesn't apply to anyone other than vietmanese growers who rip apart full houses and fill them full of lights. Same thing with the electric usage. As long as you don't take the piss with the amount of wattage in one location, you are not even on their radar.
The greenhouse method works as well, but you are limited by the UK sun, less security, and availability of rentable, no questions asked greenhouses with absentee landlords. Indoor growing, despite being more hassle and expense, can give you the perfect environment all year round.
-
Also you can disguise the heat coming out of houses by using heat reflecting material and other things (I don't know much about it, I know little-to-nothing about puff or farming it) or if you have a basement that is by far the best option or doing it in a block of flats. You are best using an industrial unit because those kinds of buildings have a reason to generate heat.
I suppose it depends on the scale of the grow, but a small setup really doesn't generate that much heat at all, if you extract it properly. A grow tent in a loft would not be visible on IR, and if the air was extracted straight outside, via a the eaves or chimney, it would not make your entire loft heat up enough to stand out. For extra peace of mind, add some insulation to your roof (kingspan/celotex boards etc) and you're good to push the wattage a bit. :)
The whole heat thing isn't that big of a concern anyway. Helicopters are expensive to keep in the air, they don't just randomly sweep over looking for growers, no matter what the press says, and if they are looking at your property in that close detail, chances are you have already been compromised elsewhere, and they are just building a case. On the few rare occasions where helicopters have detected small grows, it seems like the growers in question just attached bare HPS lights straight to the roof ridge, judging by the pics I have seen.
I have never been that interested in selling/growing. It always seems like a ballache to me for very little reward so I never got into it other than selling a few oz here and there when I was young. I found ecstasy pills quickly though and found I was much better at pills and powders than plants. Also (and no offense to people who smoke puff here) I fucking DETEST dealing with stoners. They are always late, they try and fuck you around, they always moan and just get on my tits. I'm sure this was just my bad luck but more than once a sale turned into a smack in the mouth.
I won't give you the run-down on my life story for obvious reasons, but for me, growing is a perfect fit. I've always loved weed, but hated some of the dodgy fuckers I had to associate with to get it, as well as the lack of quality and choice. I didn't start growing for monetary reasons (other than to save myself some lol), but when the system decided to fuck me (again no details), I decided to expend a bit and make a little something out of it.
I'd imagine that it would be a ballache to grow if you didn't like weed yourself, and it's probably not the most profitable drug out there, but it is cheap to set up, easy to maintain, and still quite lucrative in terms of pure cost vs yield numbers. The problem is that the numbers don't tell the full story in terms of work, time and stress. The logistics can be a nightmare if you want to get the most out of your setup, and do so on a regular basis.
-
I CAN'T HEAR YOU, MY TV'S TOO LOUD!!!!! ARRRGGGG!!!!!
-
you can buy a cheaper SR vendor account here
http://5onwnspjvuk7cwvk.onion/index.php?p=view_listing&id=1786
also vendor accounts are free on that smaller market on which this is listed.
-
Are you encouraging people to purchase used vendor accounts? That's horrible for a number of reasons!
One, it's against SR policy.
Two, You're encouraging scamming if they get an account with positive feedback.
Three, There's a good chance even if they did get a vendors account instead of being scammed on the BMR, they'd get one with a bad reputation or feedback, thus making them waste their money.
Four, and this is presumption, but i'd imagine that with a new account(possibly a throw away), you're just luring people over there to get scammed by you selling non-existent SR vendor's accounts.
-
I wouldn't bother with loft grows unless the only space you have is a loft. There are lots of tent sizes that will accommodation all spaces available. If you have a spare room get a dr120 kit, 600w hps 6-8'' extraction fan and filter. Bang in 6-10 plants. You'd only have to do 2 grows a year to keep yourself in smoke. Really for an outlay of £400ish you can have free weed for ever. Growing ain't hard but there are lots of ways to give yourself a poor yield. It's just a case of learning. Get some nice indicas on the go :)
-
^^Yep, this guy knows the score. I only got on to loft grows in response to the IR subject, which is largely a non-issue. Lofts tend to be shit environments by default (hot in summer, cold in winter), and don't usually come with easily accessible water and drainage. Nothing that a bit of cash won't sort out, but really only worthwhile if you are planning a big grow in there, or stealth concerns mean that there is no other choice (like if you regularly have visitors who have access to every other room).
There's plenty of ways people can become self-sufficient, and the method and equipment Enigmort listed is a good example of how to do it efficiently. A 600 is the most efficient HPS wattage, in terms of the amount of light output per watt of electricity used. 600 watt lights do generate quite a bit of heat, so a minimum of a 6" centrifugal fan and filter will be necessary, and the air extracted air will have to be completely isolated from the incoming air, which generally means either boxing off a window and venting out of it, cutting a hole in a ceiling/wall to duct the air elsewhere in your house (potential for free heating in winter if you go down this route ;) ), or some other means of diverting the extracted warm air away from your grow.
The other potential issue with a 600 setup is fan noise. Fans that have the capacity to pull through carbon filters are noisy, especially in the larger sizes. The best method to combat this is to oversize the fan, filter and ducting, and use a speed controller (voltage-based, like a variac or 5 step transformer, as other methods may cause fan humming and damage), although oversizing everything can be costly.
Other things that help with noise are: acoustic ducting (also helps with heat removal) , oversized ducting, especially on the exit point, silencers (bought or DIY), boxing the fan and packing the box with insulation, or wrapping it in a duvet etc. to muffle it, and hanging it with bungees to prevent vibration noise from transmitting through the structure. All these things will help to some degree, and noise reduction is usually a process, rather than a one-step solution.
If the above setup seems like a bit too much for some people, or they don't think they could hide something so big in their house, there are still other ways to grow that don't need so much space or wattage, although you trade off efficiency of the setup. In the early days, I was easily self sufficient from just a 250 watt HPS in a wardrobe, plus an 80 watt veg cupboard to get the next batch started. The downside to this method is the fact you have to grow pretty much constantly if you are a regular smoker, although it is pretty good on the stealth factor, especially if your wardrobe is lockable. I had the mother-in-law, the landlord, the neighbour and tons of repair blokes within a couple of feet of it, and nobody ever noticed a thing. :D
Another advantage of the 250 setup is that I was able to extract into the same room without any issues, which saved me having to box off a window, or start chopping holes in the house I was in at the time (rented, with a nosy landlord lol). Extracting into the same room is never ideal, but it works in smaller setups, provided you separate the incoming and outgoing airflow as much as possible, and the room itself is well vented.
I'll stop rambling about growing now, but yeah, loads of ways to do it, and whether you just want to grow a plant under a 20 watt bulb as an experiment, or fill your house full of plants vietnamese-style and make a killing on SR >:D, it can be done (I'd be sleeping on a camp bed in a tiny cupboard right now, if I was a single guy with no other responsibilities lol.