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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

guy behind the silk road shouldn't die in prison

76 replies

pettywitchinlondon · 30/05/2015 22:19

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.

OP posts:
WanderingAboutRandomly · 31/05/2015 02:39

YAB very very very U

The drugs trade is pure evil. Have a google of images of victims of the Mexican drug cartels. When people take drugs for 'fun' that's the type of image I wish they would think of.

I'm not a great fan of the tobacco trade either but that's a seperate issue altogether.

DoraGora · 31/05/2015 07:02

Well, spring him from prison then, and advise him to set up a website selling alcohol and cigarettes.

wowfudge · 31/05/2015 07:09

It's all been said on this thread already really, but I think there is a correlation between making huge amounts of money and losing a sense of what is morally right. I have very little sympathy for him, more for his parents.

Original poster
pettywitchinlondon · 31/05/2015 07:16

Alcohol and drugs a distroy far more lives.

Since this thread was started last night 6'490 have died directly from alcohol.

I really dislike this calling something morally and ethically acceptable just because its legal.

I think its part of a modern society to treat people humanely, forgive and allow rehabilitation.

OP posts:
Original poster
pettywitchinlondon · 31/05/2015 07:17
  • tobacco obvs!
OP posts:
Original poster
pettywitchinlondon · 31/05/2015 07:19

Ulbrict had begged the judge to “leave a light at the end of the tunnel” ahead of his sentence. “I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age,” he wrote to Forrest this week. Prosecutors wrote Forrest a 16-page letter requesting the opposite: “[A] lengthy sentence, one substantially above the mandatory minimum is appropriate in this case.”

“I’ve changed. I’m not the man I was when I created Silk Road. I’m a little wiser. A little more mature and much more humble,” Ulbricht pled in court.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/29/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-sentenced

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 31/05/2015 07:39

The drug trade causes misery far beyond the end users.

Cigarettes and alcohol do not.

SoupDragon · 31/05/2015 07:40

“I’ve changed. I’m not the man I was when I created Silk Road. I’m a little wiser. A little more mature and much more humble,” Ulbricht pled in court.

Wise because he was caught.
Humble because he was caught and facing a long sentence.
Mature? I doubt it.

Scared more like it.

Stitchintime1 · 31/05/2015 07:50

He's not that young. He's 31. I thought when people said "young" they meant an 18-year-old.

Stitchintime1 · 31/05/2015 08:02

How does bitcoin become real money? I bet someone will make a film of his story.

BarbarianMum · 31/05/2015 08:08

^ Not true at all. Nonetheless they are^ legal and he deserved a severe sentence for the misery he has caused.

Stitchintime1 · 31/05/2015 08:14

Alcohol causes a lot of damage. To individuals and to communities. Cigarettes are pretty bad too. Isn't his sentence pretty much what any big drug dealer would get?

SoupDragon · 31/05/2015 08:18

When I said that cigarettes and alcohol don't cause misery far beyond the end users, I meant the corruption and abuse that is part of the illegal drugs trade and all the extra illegal activities that go along with it.

LynetteScavo · 31/05/2015 08:26

Am I the only person who didn't know about this "dark web"?

Cornettoninja · 31/05/2015 08:26

Ok, fair enough. I'm sure we've all heard the trivia about alcohol and tobacco that reads if they were new products today they'd never be approved for commercial consumption.

But I'm a little confused that your stance doesn't seem to acknowledge illegal drugs are just as harmful to individuals. You seem concerned with the numbers but surely one or one million people is irrelevant if you're frustrated with a life being ruined through substance addiction.

Arguing for softer sentences that would expose more people to more types of drugs seems arse about face Confused

(Forgetting the argument the Silk Road had a much wider product range than drugs and the guy who ran it was prepared to have people murdered...)

suzannecanthecan · 31/05/2015 08:29

Silk road type websites are now a 'thing'? someone else will take his place, learn from his mistakes and not get caught.
He is a massive threat to the establishment that's why they had to make an example of him. ?
Crypto currencies ?are potentially a very big deal also a massive threat to the establishment.
I agree that drugs are bad and that includes the most toxic of them all, ie alcohol personally I don't touch ?any of them because my body is a temple.

HOWEVER, lots and lots of people are mad keen to get off their faces using alcohol or using some of the lesser poisons, one might say that the desire for intoxicants is part of being human.
I don't think that the demand for drugs is going to go away and demand creates supply.
I blame the users not the suppliers?
?

blue42 · 31/05/2015 08:32

The state wanted the maximum sentence to act as a deterrent - anyone thinking he was ever going to see daylight again was sadly too optimistic. Of course, the state are also trying to ensure that the full facts are not made public and that the public get their panties in an appropriate twist about what an evil man he is.

History is written by the victor, after all.

Truth is written by a journalist called Eileen Ormsby - well worth your time if you want the other side of the story, and some rather damning evidence on the law enforcement representatives involved.

carabos · 31/05/2015 08:32

Drug dealing and inciting the murder of potential competitors? Hmm. The guy is a very nasty piece of work who made millions from the misery of others.

Whether a whole life tariff is right or not, there's no doubt he is a danger to other people and that's fundamentally who he is.

TheChandler · 31/05/2015 08:37

I think the chance of recidivism is quite high in his case, and wouldn't tend to believe his statements about being a changed man, said in the light of pleading for a more lenient sentence.

He made an immoral choice, which affected many lives. Its not a battle between legalised drugs and recreational use, but goes far deeper than that.

But there are many examples, including in the UK, of certain offences which attract disproportionately harsh sentences. For example, professionals who money launder or misappropriate funds or misuse drugs e.g. in the legal or medical professions, commonly receive sentences which are disproportionately harsh and which effectively end their careers and make it very difficult to earn a living once released from prison.

And at civil enforcement level, many penalties can be harsher than some criminal penalties. There was a landlord who was fined harshly because his agent got one letter wrong in the postcode when sending out the notice confirming that the deposit had been protected. But bitcoin dealing drug enablers are trendy on mumsnet, landlords are not.

Original poster
pettywitchinlondon · 31/05/2015 08:40

Causing misery to to others? By letting them decide what to do with their own body.

Time this stupid war on drugs was ended, but no trillions more will be wasted.

OP posts:
OneFlewOverTheDodosNest · 31/05/2015 08:41

The Silk Road most dealt in drugs but not exclusively - his platform also enabled human trafficking and allowed people to hire hit men.

I feel more sorry for the women and children that were sold through his website than the man who made a profit off them- Even if that wasn't his intention, you've got to be held responsible if you make money off something so horrific

TheChandler · 31/05/2015 08:43

OP Causing misery to to others? By letting them decide what to do with their own body

What, by knowingly facilitating human trafficking? Are you serious?

blue42 · 31/05/2015 08:45

Can you provide any links regarding the human trafficking, as I have not seen this before? I see child porn has also been referenced here - when Silk Road actually had a very strict policy against it.

CaptainHolt · 31/05/2015 08:46

I don't really understand your argument. I was raised by an alcoholic parent, I understand the damage alcohol can do. I also work in the NHS and see the middle aged patients who 30 years ago were puffing on Marlborough Lights saying 'I could get hit by a bus tomorrow' but they weren't hit by busses and are now dragging oxygen cylinders around with them. However, they aren't doing anything illegal whereas drug dealing is illegal.

The website is about more than drugs. You could also buy guns and forged currency. You could buy a hit (although there is no evidence of any murders being carried out). It provided a safe space for anything illegal to be traded and a message needs to be sent that if you do that then you will be removed from society. How long before people would be traded on there if they weren't being already?
We do have a problem with the criminality illegal alcohol but we don't have little kids trafficked halfway around the world to brew up blue WKD. People caught manufacturing or selling illegal alcohol are dealt with in the criminal justice system, just as people who deal in illegal drugs.

If you think that alcohol and tobacco should be illegal then you need to campaign for that rather than try to free people who have enabled the trade of millions of pounds of illegal drugs and then had the brass neck to clutch the photos of people killed by those drugs whilst being sentenced.

blue42 · 31/05/2015 08:46

Can you provide any links regarding the human trafficking, as I have not seen this before? I see child porn has also been referenced here - when Silk Road actually had a very strict policy against it.