[nxtrafalgar]

>Do you believe life imprisonment is the correct answer for every bar and liquor store owner in the world, or every pain management MD that is overprescribing Oxycontin? At the worst, Ulbricht has no worse social effect than these people.

There's a substantial difference between social drinking or overprescription and facilitating the large-scale sale of hard drugs.

[micaksica]

> There's a substantial difference between social drinking or overprescription

We're talking about lives being ruined. I know many alcoholics that are "social drinking", every day, to the detriment of their own careers and family lives, being run through the court system DUI after DUI. I also know many who, after a back injury, are still on Oxy years later, just finding new doctors that will re-prescribe them Oxy again. I know people whose teenage children then started stealing and taking the Oxycodone from their parents' supply. I have a friend currently sitting in prison for opiate-based drug offenses as well -- much to the detriment of his immediate family.

These situations were facilitated by these very institutions. Alcohol distributors may be the kingpins and bars the corner dealers, pharma companies the kingpins and MDs the dealers. SR was a proxy and gateway to substances that in some cases are far less dangerous than the ones our own country seems completely OK with.

These are consumption-side issues, as you seem to agree with -- I am drinking a glass of wine right now, not four bottles. The same can be said about a lot of potentially socially destructive substances that were available on SR, and other illegal-in-many-states substances such as marijuana are generally accepted as virtually harmless in comparison to oxy or alcohol.

[nxtrafalgar]

So I agree there are substantial harms from alcohol, but the context of alcohol sales is still different. It occurs in a regulated market with oversight, safety standards, etc. Now perhaps the market for, say, heroin should be legal and regulated, in order to reduce social harm, but it currently isn't.

That means by facilitating the distribution of a drug, you are propping up an illegal industry, perhaps run by organized crime and so on.

I don't disagree that there is an element of regulatory / governmental failure here, but to suggest that these activities are equivalent strikes me as a stretch.

[darawk]

No, there absolutely isn't. Huge numbers of people have their lives ruined by alcoholism. It is exactly, precisely morally equivalent to hard drug sales. There is no difference. I say this as a former hard drug addict.