Exclusive interview with Dread Pirate Roberts: ‘You cannot stop people doing drugs’
by mike power
The Silk Road’s new operator, known by the same pseudonym as his predecessor, Dread Pirate Roberts — spoke to me over an encrypted connection. And, he says, this new phase of the drugs war is as futile, counterproductive, and doomed to failure as the last.
excerpt
Ultimately you cannot stop people doing drugs, but you can make it safer for them, and get people off the streets and away from violence — which is what we stand for.
What’s your solution to the war on drugs?
Quite simply: to consign the disaster to the history books and redirect the allocated budgets to rehabilitation facilities, so that dependent users can re-enter the workforce.
The government has tried for years to repaint the walls, but what use is that if the wall is coming down? Fix the education system, fix the welfare system, help those most vulnerable in society, and we won’t have problematic drug users—only those who use that freedom responsibly.
When no child goes to bed hungry and no old person struggles to pay the costs of living, then I would be happy to say that tackling drug use is an acceptable way to spend money—if it were still illegal at that point. But putting people in jail for smoking a plant while leaving schoolchildren hungry at night is an utter disgrace.
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