It's probably the purest definition of whack-a-mole that there'll ever be. People like drugs. People like buying things online. Once someone manages to successfully decentralise it, though I've no idea how you could do that in terms of escrow, they'll be with us until the end of time.
Exactly. Even draconic sentences won't help to stop people from buying and using drugs. There are a lot of (Asian) countries that have extremely strict drug laws, yet drug use is far from extinct in these countries. If governments had a real interest in reducing drug abuse, it would be much better to focus on education on the user's side rather than illusory trying to drain supply (which will only drive up prices and make drug use more dangerous).
Ironically, the Silk Road closure and sentencing of Ulbricht led to a decentralization of the marketplaces, which will make it much harder to control. The media exposure of the case may have even encouraged users to search for drug offerings in the so-called "dark web".
ya.ya.yo!
That's right and here's your proof:
Portugal in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.
Source:
http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html