guy behind the silk road shouldn't die in prison

[pettywitchinlondon]

When tobacco and alcohol is far far far far far more damaging and kills far more people but the people running these companies are very wealthy and most peoples pensions invest in these companies.

Eh? Is there a link or something

Glad you're not my lawyer

I agree actually.

wasn't his site selling illegal drugs such as heroin (and money laundering. And computer hacking)? Whereas tobacco and alcohol are legal?

I mean, I personally think it's nuts that tobacco in particular is legal but it is, so how can they be treated the same as illegal drugs?

I agree too. It seems I humane and hypocritical. Or perhaps just one of the small evils perpetrated within protectionist capitalism.

I must admit I am not up to date on the story but Silk Road provided a platform for some very dark peer to peer information and product exchange, perhaps the gravity of the full picture (ie beyond chemicals and plants) had an impact? I had always assumed they would be brought in on some kind of fraud charge rather than something directly related to products. But I might be talking rubbish. Will go and read a little more re charges.

It lowered the barriers to drug dealing by enabling drug dealers to reach customers online they could have never met on the street. what did he expect?

His parents are trying to get him off on a technicality. He started it, he made money off it. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

I agree on an emotional level - breaks my heart to think of anyone so young serving an unequivocal life sentence - but i am very interested to hear other peoples opinions. Maybe i am being naive - i suppose the relatives of those who bought drugs from the Silk Road website and then overdosed must see it very differently.

I can't help thinking that anything has got to be better than buying drugs at street level from people who are almost certainly capable of cutting them with shit - and that's before you go into the nature of the kind of people who DO sell drugs at that level. They're hardly going to be altar boys are they? Apart from anything else they encourage dependance by giving credit then get very nasty when the debt cannot be repaid. Far better to have the controlled sale of this stuff - and the only difference between illegal drugs and legal ones is the length of time it takes for them to kill you!

I see, the money laundering would have created a big chunk of the sentence. Seems extreme to have him die in prison but I guess this os a bit of a trophy thing for all prosecution/authorities/judges involved. It is a shame that the wealth of information and advice silk road held isn't accessible anymore to those who would have benefited from it.

He enabled criminality indiscriminately. He didn't care if the money being laundered was from people-trafficking, images of child sexual abuse, drug-dealing or terrorism. That's why he's got a whole life sentence.

Youth is no excuse.

Loads of young people are convinced that pirated content isn't against the law.

He knew what he was doing. Tough luck

Far better to have the controlled sale of this stuff do you really think this was any different to the sale of drugs at "street level"?

Do you really think that people didn't get addicted or die of an overdose in the same way as those that bought at street level?

I think it also sets a scary precedent. Which is hidden behind all the 'paedophile-enabling'; 'dealing heroin to schoolchildren' headlines.
I'm terrified of some of the possibilities of the internet but I think the sentence was draconian I. The extreme.

Well yes of course I think that thornrose or I wouldn't have said it. Anyway - sad to say I do know more than I should about this kind of thing for one reason and another and my opinion is just that - my opinion.

Well, he was treated as the equivalent in culpability to a mafia don (charged with running a criminal enterprise) and sentenced accordingly. While I also think the sentence is too harsh, I do agree with putting Ulbricht at that sort of level.

YABU. Alcohol and tobacco are not illegal. No matter what your feelings on them are, they are perfectly acceptable.

Ross Ulbricht created a site on the dark web that made buying drugs easily anonymous. He knew full well what he was doing. He is an incredibly intelligent man who decided to use his smarts to sell drugs. Did he do it personally? No. Did he provide a platform for people to do so? Yes. Did he knowingly allow it to continue? Yes.

He took payment by bitcoin, ( can be incredibly difficult to trace) he knew what he was doing. Money over lives.

Drug dealers caught with a massive amount deserve a life sentence. A man who makes an almost untraceable website to make money off drugs also deserves life.

I don't believe in whole life sentences but the guy is an absolute shit who has destroyed lives. The illegal drug industry causes misery far beyond those addicted. There are trafficked children locked inside UK cannabis farms right now breathing in the fumes from the chemicals so some jackass can get a cheap spliff.

He's a twat who thought he was being clever and above the law.

So are you saying drug dealers should not be jailed?

YANBU.

He was in his thirties, and he'd tried to arrange the murders of six people.

The second coming of Christ he was not.

YABU.

Agree about the sentence. But this guy seems like a nasty piece of work if the stories about the attempts to hire people to kill rivals are true. There are so many people serving ridiculously draconian sentences in us prisons, a terrible system but my heart doesn't bleed for this man in particular.