This opens up all manor of risks, directly related to the interaction and indirectly to the locations where such interactions take place. Having drug transactions forced underground means that vendors are forced to interact with buyers. While trying to avoid cliches, those seeking drugs are more likely to be vulnerable people, while those selling drugs are more likely to be associated with other crimes and have violent tendencies. Then there is the fact the vendor and buyer are physically separated. Michael White of the University of Connecticut studied this activity and reported on it in 2021, coming to similar conclusions to other medical experts, “The research is clear: Adding impurities to, or adulterating, illicit drugs is a longstanding and widespread practice with harmful consequences … the difference between what you believe you are buying and what is actually in the product can be the difference between life and death.” It was by no means a guarantee of minimum quality nor, obviously, could it be described as a safety feature, but it was mitigation for an issue that is causing unknown harm. Silk Road, through its user-review system that sought to mimic legal retail sites, gamified the supply of drugs to reward those providing better-quality products.
From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in nonmedical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl.” Fentanyl is “ used as an adulterant because its high potency allows dealers to traffic smaller quantities but maintain the drug effects buyers expect.” A medical toxicologist writing for The Conversation stated, “Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. annual overdose deaths exceeding 100,000 for the first time in 2021 - a five-fold increase since 2000 that’s one person dying of an overdose in the U.S. Fentanyl is turning up in all kinds of drugs, which is contributing to U.S.
In 2021, three comedians famously died in LA after taking cocaine laced with fentanyl. In 2018, 150 people in Illinois presented themselves to hospitals because they were bleeding uncontrollably after using synthetic cannabis-based products that contained rat poison. In 2004, an assessment of ecstasy tablets from drug seizures in the 1990s found that up to 20% of the pills contained no MDMA, but were instead comprised of caffeine, ephedrine, ketamine, paracetamol or placebo. This results in bad experiences, illness and even death. It is a known problem that an underground drug trade facilitates unscrupulous behavior where dealers seek to maximize returns by adulterating the product. I also benefited from the measures Silk Road implemented to improve quality control. Nick Bilton, who wrote a book about Ulbricht’s case, stated in a 2020 Vanity Fair article, “I find it reprehensible that people on social media are so adamant that Ulbricht should be freed because he performed his crimes from behind a computer.” The consideration by Trump in 2020 to pardon Ulbricht drew particular criticism. Ulbricht is a young, well-educated, articulate man who has outstanding entrepreneurial skills and who harnessed the capacity of various technical innovations to bring something new to the world. It is the consideration of these acts on which my opinions of Ulbricht’s case rest. Ulbricht’s punishment was related directly to the nonviolent activities associated with running Silk Road, namely: distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents and conspiring to commit money laundering.
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