Follow the Silk Road

Imagine a marketplace where drugs, and other black market services are sold openly, and are available to everyone. And the marketplace is usable through the internet. It sounds outlandish, but it exists, in the form of the "Silk Road." In case you haven't heard of it, it's a website that can be accessed through the Tor Browser, a service that hides your identity with a series of servers. For additional security, users purchase their illegal goods using bitcoins, a nearly untraceable currency. Once you get on the wesbite, you can buy everything from black tar heroin to liquid LSD. The website has been up and running for over two years, and has made over $1.2 billion. Perhaps the most amazing part was that for the two and a half years it was up, no one got caught. Somehow, the anonymous owner of the website (nicknamed "Dread Pirate Roberts,") ran an illegal 1 billion dollar business right in plain sight of the government.

But it couldn't last forever. Last month, the Dread Pirate Roberts, AKA Ross Ulbricht, was taken into custody and is now in a high security prison. So why? It may seem like an obvious question, but think about it. What did he do? He sold people goods. He wasn't hurting any one; the customer made the decision to purchase the drug. It's their decision what to put into their bodies, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. Ulbricht currently faces probable life in jail because he gave people what they wanted. Arresting him and putting him in prison ruins his life, but does nothing for actual drug users. They can just get it from somewhere else; there are already dozens of different website doing the same job as Silk Road. All the government does is knock down one kingpin and watch three more take his place. It's a pointless game, and until we address the issue of drug legalization/abuse in our country, no one will be able to win it.