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Visualizing The "Benefits" Of Silk Road
With the FBI shutdown of the underground online drug marketplace Silk Road this week, IBTimes Lisa Mahapatra points out that its customers will have to shop elsewhere for their fix. However, unfortunately for some, this will mean paying up for their favorite brand of pharmaceutical. As the following infographic shows, the prices of marijuana and cocaine vary significantly across regions with the former more expensive on Silk Road and the latter cheaper.
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I only tried drugs once, from 1964 to 2011.
How was the landing?
I'm still looking for the runway.
unfortunately they can't afford to turn the lights on, suggest a napkin parachute
I never had a problem with alcohol or drugs..
I could always get all I wanted.
Do those big circles beside Canada mean it's in a 'drug bubble'?
No. Those are their swollen eyes!
I'm not as think as you stoned I am...
Rare that the follow-up is as good as the initial post. +1 would upvote again.
I used to take drugs, I still do but I used to too.
I don't do drugs for religious reasons. I do them for other reasons.
reality is for those who cant handle drugs.
too much brain is not good for the weed.
There is a lot of truth in these two statements.
herb gives me the courage to accept the things i cannot change
(and yes i'd like attribution if you use it)
Average amount of violence on Silk Road compared to the street = -100%
But, it does practically reveal a HUGE disadvantage of Bitcoin vs. gold coins / cash: the FBI can now track every single use of SilkRoad - how much was spent, to whom, how much. This is not only a problem for the dealers, but users, and those the dealers spent money on (think money laundering, etc.).
the FBI can now track every single use of SilkRoad
And you know this because CNN told you?
Dafuq? I'm moving to the Phillipines.
If you do, don't get caught. Cheap drugs = Nasty prisons.
Proud to be Canadian!
Yup. The continuing soap opera of "The Daze of Our Lives".
So it is much more profitable to sell cocaine on the street. Plus you get the plus of the fantastic company of crack heads. Why would you ever give that up?
Do we really need to talk about benefits of the drug trade?
Maybe I smoked too much weed or something or I'm misinterpreting the graphs, because they don't make sense to me at all.
Why would anyone in their right mind, living in the Netherlands, buy a whopping average of 32 grams of marijuana through Silk Road at $22.14 a gram, if you can just walk into any coffee shop and buy the legally allowed maximum of 5 grams per purchase at around $10 a gram, without breaking any laws, risking any kind of legal complications, not having to dick around with bitcoins, and very likely get much better quality in return?
Handicapped that can't walk and now has to pay.
They're called stoners for a reason
i was happy to pay premiums on silkroad because of quality of product and variety compared to my local street offerings and also convenience of not having to physically deal with people to get it.
only ever bought weed though in relatively small quanitities.
it really was a fantastic service, replacements will be coming out of the woodwork for sure. too much money there not to.
This wasn't just about pot and cocaine.
There were prescription medications that were being sold through Silk Road. People who pay out of pocket for medicine through Silk Road were paying less than the amount of their co-pay even ... for some medications.
This move to shut down Silk Road further helps Big Pharma protect their monopoly.
Enjoy your captive life, sheeps!
Animal....if you want to buy prescription drugs really cheap, try Drugmeds.com.
It is an Indian sight that sells quality meds at hugh discounts.
P.S. their Viagra really works and it's under $1.00 per pill..
haha bad to use Viagra as an example Zorba! Really cheap Viagra typically means they're fake "sugar pills", but they can most of the time still work through the placebo effect.
Problem are the ones that are not as recreational as viagra and just won't work through placebo effect, or are made of all kinds of nasty stuff, like road paint and others...
Maybe some enterprising CIA Agent will come up with the Illegal Drug Futures Market.
The involvement of the CIA with illegal drugs is similar to the involvement of the Federal Reserve with the US Dollar.
The Silk Road and Bitcoin became too much of a competition with the CIA operations with Illegal Drugs and Bitcoin was too much of a threat to the US Dollar.
Even though the Market Share was comparatively small the US Goverment had to quashthe competition because it demonstrated a viable alternative to the CIA Drug Trade AND a viable alternative to the US Dollar.
Frank Zappa once said, and I PARAPHRASE, that when you use drugs that he wanted you to picture a Chrome Dome sitting behind a desk in Washington D.C. That bureaucrat has a plate glass window behing him and the view is of the US Capitol. So you picture that asshole sitting behind his desk, rubbing his hands together, smiling, and saying to himself, "Good. It is working!"
If you use Illegal Drugs and are in anyway involved in that trade then you support the CIA and the murders of brown skinned people. Al Qaeda said that the people of the East Side Manhattan were the ones that paid for the 9-11 Operation. That was the murders of White skinned people on our soil.
Next time that you snort up a line or spark up a joint you think about YOUR COMPLICITY.
Catherine Austin Fitts is right. Nobody will press the Red Button. You can all have the collapse that you so rightfully deserve.
>> You can all have the collapse that you so rightfully deserve.
I'm sure you'll be joining us, Dear.
Looking forward to it...Dear.
I got to buy some of that General Electric Stawk. I mean those guys are the ones that are responsible for building the Reactor Core at FUKUSHIMA. No worries. They are Too Big To Fail.
We nuke them with Atom Bombs in August, 1945 and again, with a Meltdown, in March, 2011. (Nobody could have forecast a Tsunami in one of the most Geologically Active places on Earth. That would not be reasonable.) They do not learn. Of course everybody wants to point the finger at Tepco. That way it is not pointed at GE. The Blame Game is fun, right?
Yes General Electric Owners support that. And just who heavily advertises on this website? Can it be...General Electric? I am looking at an ad now.
Yes dear. The path to Hell is wide. There is always room for one more, including me.
Who will press the Red Button?
Is there anybody out there?
There'll be nothing fun about a serious collapse for anyone. Trust me, even the shitty scenario we have now is prefereable.
No. The shitty scenarion we have now is the lesser of two evils which is not preferable. There is NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, preferable about this corrupt system that we are "enjoying". A choice between the lesser of two evils is still a choice for evil. I will not buy into that False Dilemma Fallacy.
Well the evil must come to an end and be abolished. Now we can choose a extremely painful collapse NOW and cut out the Cancer which is eroding, corrupting, the foundations of our economy.
Or we can wait and allow the Cancer to completely destroy us which will be far more painful as it leads to our ultimate Death and Destruction.
Now you may somehow be deluded and believe that the current paradigm can somehow be salvaged. You may be deluded and somehow believe that there is a Political Solution so that you can maintain you current way of life. You may even claim that I am describing a False Dilemma Fallacy.
But the reality is that it is the Math that will demonstrate your fallacy and vindicate my logic.
Exponential Growth is unsustainable in environments with limited resources. Exponential Growth ALWAYS precedes an Exponential Collapse. It is a Law of Nature which cannot magically be changed by some Political Decree.
The vast problem that we have facing us is that Americans are INNUMERATE as well as ILLITERATE.
I have read total crap here on ZH in the comments. Nobody has a grasp of the Mathematics.
For example one post recently claimed, quite erroneously, that Liberty is inversely proportional to the Amount of Government. He wrote an equation to demonstrate his "vast knowledge" as L = 1/G. That was so ridiculous I almost spit out my Mountain Dew on the Keyboard.
This was a demonstration of SHALLOW THINKING.
First if I wanted to demostrate a linear proportionality then the Equation reads as L = K/G where K is a proportionality Constant.
But the Equation still lacked any connection with Reality. Because the Inverse Relationship between Liberty and the Government is actually Exponential in Nature.
First since what restricts Liberty is a FORCE then we can write that Force is Inversely proportional to the Sqare (the Exponent) of how far away a participant is removed from Government. This can easily be demonstrated as there are many Law Enforcement Officers who patrol the Ghettos while relatively few in Suburbia. Thus the probability of losing Liberty in a Ghetto is much more likely than it is losing your Liberty in Suburbia.
Next The Force of Government is Directly Proportional to the Wealth of the Government compared to that of the Wealth of Liberty Minded People. It takes Wealth to enforce Government Restrictions. It also takes Wealth to enforce your Rights in the Legal System. As these are Diametrically opposed they are the Negative of one another. Thus that expression can be expressed as a a Difference.
Finally The Force of Government is Directly Proportional to the Sizes of the Collectives, the Masses, that are at opposition. That means the amount of people that actively support the Totalitarian Government to the amount of Liberty Minded People whom are opposed. Again since these are opposed the signs are Opposites. But this is a Multiplicative Factor, a Product.
Putting this all together...
FGov = {-K(WGov - WLiMP)MGovmLMP}/(DGov-LMP)2
Where:
K is a Proportionality Constant
FGov is the Force of Goverment,
WGov is the Wealth of Government,
WLiMP is the Wealth of Liberty Minded People,
MGov is the Masses whom support Totalitarian Government,
mLMP are the Masses whom support Liberty, and
DGov-LMP is the Distance one is removed from the Center of Totalitarian Government.
The Negative Sign in front of K was Commuted from mLMP.
Liberty is stymied by Force and thrives under a Voluntary Paradigm. Thus Liberty is inversely proportional to Force, and since we have defined a Force we can now Substitute.
Doing the Algebra for you
Liberty = Cproportionality/FGov
Liberty = (-1/K)(DGov-LMP)2/{(WGov - WLiMP)MGovmLMP} which demostrates the Square Relation, an Exponential Relation.
Now all that I did was to apply NEWTON'S Law of UNIVERSAL Gravitation to describe the Force. (Thank you Isaac Newton.) What may have escaped you is that word UNIVERSAL. It just does not apply to Physics. It applies to EVERYTHING...UNIVERSALLY. I learned that when a Graduate Student in my Dorm wanted to show me an application of that equation...IN AN ECONOMICS TEXT...that described Migrations from Metropolis to Metropolis...
But what good is the Equation if it cannot be applied? No good whatsoever.
Well with the DEFINTION you can either decrease the sizes of the Masses and Liberty will grow. But that is not practical. Increasing the Wealth of the Liberty Minded over that of the Government will remove the Negative Factor. But that is also limited. Or you can increase your DISTANCE away from the Centralized Government by OPTING OUT. Since this is the Squared Factor this will yield the Greatest Affect.
That is the power of Math with is so sadly lacking amongst many of you.
And I have read total crap here on ZH in the comments. Nobody has a grasp of the Mathematics.
So you can continue choosing the False Dilemma of the lesser of two evils.
Or you can understand the Math that we are headed toward collapse, one way, or another.
But choose wisely.
Yes, less gov=moar freedomz... as proven by current privately owned DC, right (I mean, without DC, wouldn't big corp just automagically respect the will and rights of the public)?
That factor was considered in the Wealth of Government term. Governments do not create Wealth. Corporations and businesses create Wealth.
When Crony Capitalists become wealthy enough to buy Government then they have the Government institute Regulations that restrict Competion. At that point the Government becomes more totalitarian.
No you can expect that Big Corporations will not respect the will and rights of the public as that is reflected by the Totalitarian Government which we currently have.
People create wealth (whether individually or collectively), but my point is you can't ever have no (or small) government, as someone will always end up taking over its functions (and then strengthen it) to their own advantage and self-preservation (as seen "on TV")...
Ironically enough, the only way to avoid this is by means of a strong (ie: deep rooted and regulating) enough government to prevent anyone from growing powerful enough to take over itself.
Hmm, so people who use illegal drugs are "crazies" but those who use legal drugs are patients? The whole system is bullshit which you have outlined quite well but you still make judgements off of it. You talk as though you have read this all from a book. Stop condemning people that you know nothing about and stop being so self righteous.
edit* jesus you are annoying
Excuse me? If you read condemnation in what I wrote you are sadly mistaken.
I am for legalization of ALL Drugs. I described a Medical Condition. There is no judgment whatsoever in what I wrote.
By the way...I LIVED IT. What I know is EXPERIENTIAL.
Prescription Medications, while effective for a Majority of people, are ineffective for a Minority. Furthermore they are POISONS. They are no better than ANY of the illegal drugs.
So you can read into what I wrote as you please.
Thank you for the compliment that it reads like a Text Book. That is my goal in writing.
Bullshit, stop fucking demonstrating your prowess on a forum. No one is impressed except that one douche. You read like a dictionary and no that is not a compliment. You say you have experience, yet you show none of it. Ya you make a point but with a 900 word response to an offhand 20 word comment. Maybe if you stopped being such a wanker you could get a point across.
Tom, I read your biography, and I am impressed. You are correct in your beliefs that the CIA
has been the main drug runner in the U.S. and it goes way back. Linden Lareush (wrong spelling)
a presidential candidate back in the 1970s wrote a book exposing Henry Kissenger and the CIA
as the main illegal drug runners in the U.S. and he was railroaded for his efforts. The profits
were used to fund clandescent activities of the CIA under then president Richard Nixon.
The reason the U.S. hasn't clamped down on Illegal drug trade is that TPTB believe it is useful
in keeping the poor from rebelling i.e. keeping the black man down.
Being that most hard drugs cause brain damage over long term use, then yes, of course it's in the interest of the TBTB.
But it works even better to clamp down on the street level dealers and users, to keep them poorer and imprisioned! Hence why they're very "Illegal".
Respectfully you write an Urban Myth. Hard Drugs do not cause Brain Damage.
The truth is that Pre Existing Brain Damage causes Hard Drug use. There are two types of "Crazies". Those that are "On Drugs" and those that NEED TO BE.
Think about it. Have you ever taken a drug for the hell of it? I mean have you ever had the desire to eat an aspirin just because you wanted to? I know of nobody rational who has done that. I know nobody in his RIGHT MIND that will undertake such an action.
People, without BRAIN DAMAGE, rational thinkers, will take an asprin if they have a headache. Maybe they will use Ibuprofen (AdvilTM) or acetamenophen (TylenolTM) instead of Asprin. Maybe they will use a homeopathic concotion of Herbs. But the POINT is that they take it for a reason.
The REASON that people abuse Alcohol or abuse Illegal Drugs is because they are not in thier RIGHT MIND. Thier thinking is not straight. So they do not feel comfortable in Social Situations and Circumstances. They are anxious to the point of paranoia at times. So they "take a drink" to remove the edge. Or they use some Blow to feel "NORMAL"
They have Neurochemistry anomalies BEFORE they ever take the Drugs. They take the Chemical in order to FUNCTION. Without it they believe themselves to be DYSFUNCTIONAL. They have LOW SELF ESTEEMS.
Hard Drugs do NOT CAUSE Neurochemistry Imbalances. The imbalances exist before the Drug is ever used. Why some "go insane" after taking a drug is because they were ALREAY PREDISPOSED to going insane.
The Reason why Illegal Drugs are illegal is to MAXIMIZE PROFITS. It takes a lot of revenue to accomplish a Black Operation.
In a Black Market prices are elevated as supplies are restricted. If the Drugs were legal and medicalized then that will impact the market and no covert monies can be siphoned as everything is accounted for. A Black Market removes these probems. It is strictly about the money.
Furthermore they do use the laws to enrich the Privatized Prison Corporations through a guarantee of full Prison Populations.
It is totally sick. There will be Hell to pay. Enjoy the collapse. It is coming to a theater near you.
Tall Tom - Great elucidation of the problem. I can see by the number of down arrows on your first post how many CIA sponsored trolls are awake on ZH today LOL
Okay, I'm gonna go golfing now and have a few beers, so let me see if I understand this correctly:
Let G = the amount of Golf I play;
Let SE = my Self-Esteem
Let B = the number of beers required after sucking so badly on the course
Let K = a constant representing my wife's incessant bitching about the absolute values of G and B
Therefore, G=(SE-10 + B*.5)/K
Yep, just as I thought-- Tall Tom was right:
Brain damage.
Cool. I like the development. I would think that K would need to be a Fractional Exponent to be more accurate.
Don't blame me, man. I started growing my own herb soon after starting to toke on a regular basis. No one ever got shot up in my grow room, and my money never went to the cartels and street thugs after that.
Cool. Yeah I used to grow it myself...in the day. I turned my Dorm Room at the University into a Grow Room. I learned out of Rosenthal's "Bible", "The Marijuana Grower's Guide". That was one of the best books I ever read. I kept the Dorm Floor supplied during the Dry Times.
Then I got a stupid "Know it All" Roommate that announced to 80 people that he did not know that he was going to smoke pot in "His room" anytime that he wanted. I retorted, "Not in my room, you won't" After that floor meeting I threw him against the wall, showed him the Operation, and told him that there will be NOTHING happening in that room. I would teach him how to do it but he'd follow my rulez or he could find himself another place to stay.
Needless to say he did not follow my rules and I got popped as a result. Well that cost me $250 for a Misdemeanor Possession Charge (in Arizona) and expungement which does not mean anything anymore as the bastards can open sealed ajudicated cases. Fuck the Patriot Act.
So I understand your anecdotal case. I am not Lily White. But I left that scene behind in late childhood. Be cool, be careful, and do not advertise it. It will get you popped. I know that...from experience.
yeah because filling up your gas tank doesn't have exactly the same complicity.
whata fucking moron.
Actually filling up my Gas Tank also gives me complicity. Do you think that I deny that?
Paying taxes also gives me complicity. Do you think that I deny that?
After all Financial support is support.
One can opt out by minimizing one's involvement. One can opt out by refusing to profit from it. One can reject the US Dollar and Dollar Based assets as a PROTEST. One can refuse to do business with the large corporations and localize thier business dealings.
One can actually vote with thier pocketbook, thier wallet, and refuse to spend into it, restricting Government Revenues through taxation.
One can actually buy Gold to reject the US Dollar.
It just depends how important it is..TO YOU...and what you are willing to sacrifice, if anything at all.
Or one can deny it, continue thier support of it, justify it and accept the Reality for what it is and not act to CHANGE IT.
Of course that it the easiest path because it requires absolutely no action on one's part.
It is just your choice. Choose wisely.
Whatever you say Mr Taliban....
No I did not support President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. Did you know that Rummy, during the Reagan Administration, went over and visited with the Taliban? Do you know who Charlie Rose is and what he did with the Taliban in the 1980s? Did you know that President Bush had the Taliban as guests at the Ranch before he became President in the late 1990s?
I was more than pleased to read that the Taliban DESTROYED THE OPIUM CROP in Afghanistan in 2002 and 2003 as I knew that it hurt the CIA.
Other than that I do not support the Taliban or the CIA as I do not use illegal drugs. Both the Taliban and the CIA's main goal is to RESTRICT LIBERTY. I find that to be an abomination.
Of course we helped them replant it and Heorin imports grew at an alarming rate thereafter. US Troops on the Ground are ordered NOT TO DESTROY THE FIELDS by CIA Officers currently.
I really did not think that things could get worse than we had with Bush. Then we got the Sodomite in Chief, Obama, to replace him?
But I now know who you are. I also keep lists.
No way! USA 8 ball $150, keys for eagles and you can step on the key. Call the president. I think I see a way out of the national debt.
“In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”
- Hunter S. Thompson
Holy crap!
That sounds like something Ayn Rand would say.
The listed prices are insane. I should have been dealing on the silk road instead of working a normal job. When I was in college you could get a G of blow for $40....The fact that you could arb on the lowest size purchase is crazy. Although, there is the issue of shipping.
inflation hit cocaine too
Actually it didn't. The drug warfare units target American youth 12-28. As the disposable income of this demographic has severely declined, the prices of the most addictive, contaminated street drugs have discounted to match. The au:coke ratio is the inverse of au:usd. Currently extremely cheap meth imported from China by ??? is overwhelming western markets and providing an even worse product to the vulnerable.
I didn't graduate all that long ago. Granted, I went to school in a border state so the prices were a lot lower than the rest of the country and the quality was a lot better. I wonder if those prices were the shipped prices vs the price for just the product. I have no idea what the success rate of shipping those sorts of products would be so that could be another reason the cost is was so high.
Just legalize drugs you crony ass-wipes.
For every dollar the drug cartels make, the MIC/PIC makes a hundred.
Very true. Actually there is this hilarious story of a certain Mexican 'sicario we-chop-up-unarmed-women' cartel offering to finance film projects in America, that and they bought up race horses, houses, congressmen, police, license authorities etc etc etc
Governments are a joke and should be outlawed, also the Fed should be used as a museum of economic horrors, to show future generations of the crony-cycle ends up destroying the system. etc
Keep in mind that anarchy and totalitarianism are pretty much the same thing to bankers.
Governments are a joke and should be outlawed?
Who the fuck does the 'outlawing' and enforcement of same?
That's like telling the government to keep your hands off my social security.
Aint. Gonna. Happen.
Keeping it illegal creates barriers to entry, which creates huge profit margins, which creates mountains of cash, which feeds the banks, politicians, and spooks.
Just a dream...
Our evolution, culturally, has grind to a halt.
So who will change that!?
Everyone on ZH should ask that to themselves.
They can't legalize Drugs. It will collapse the Banks. Do you know how much Revenue the Banks earn by laundering Drug Money? It is not prosecuted. The Banks have to pay a small fine to the Government (Small in comparison to what they have made...) when "caught". It is just a cost of doing business.
Nobody goes to jail
As they are too big to fail
Now that is an internal stanza for a Limerick. Where is the Limerick King when you need him?
Are you willing to sacrifice the Banks?
Are you willing to have a Global Depression?
Are you willing to push Catherine Austin Fitts Red Button?
Are you willing to sacrifice your Standard of Living?
Other than that...er...SETTING THAT ASIDE...yeah...legalize all drugs.
That's a decent carry trade to Australia. What is up with that country?
I'm thinking more in terms of gold to China for (soon to be reserve currency) yuan; because trading and selling it will be illegal here.
Btw they are coming up with some good cannabis concentrates here in the U.S.; odorless, indistinguishable, potent...
I celebrate one of the last good things going here...
I imagine being a chemistry professor in Austrailia has its benefits.
With Australia being a giant island, there's no easy way to get large amounts in - but some does arrive and it's pretty much all by boat. Please note that the nearest large/corrupt/poor country is Indonesia, which has the death penalty for drug mules.
im so high right now, i have no idea whats going on.
dont forget to bring a towel.
Kids need someone to tell them what works over their lifetimes and what doesn't work. Drugs always take more than they give and it is the same with psychotropic drugs. Mostly people need both mental and physical activity to remain in balance and appreciative of the life they have. No pain no gain but it has to be the right work to match the individual.
I learned that by living but possibly could have been taught it and experienced and then incorporated it into my life much sooner. I do not use drugs but if other people do that is their problem. Many will learn the same way I did.
Although while watching Gravity last weekend I did look around and think to myself, "Who's got the acid?"
Come now, thats bullshit. Marriage has ruined far more lives than cocaine, meth and heroin combined. Alcohol + marriage makes waterboarding look like a short religious ritual. Starts with a hottie and a bottle of wine, ends with lawyers taking more than half. How did that happen? Better figure it out, its an epidemic. Television content is so singly dangerous and potent, no high, all bummer, that the criminals who distribute it should be in prison for conducting unilateral psychological warfare on defenseless civilians. The naivete of children is a separate issue, and shielding them from reality isn't doing them any favors. You don't want sex regulated, do you? 60% of social interaction is sex, and its dangerous, but what would life be without endorphins? Yellen!!!
Except they did not shut down Silk Road. THey just caught one guy. Silk Road is still in operation.
It's Ponzi weed bitchezzz :P
6-7 euro's a gram is the correct price.
Hashtag Bitchcoinz