Interesting take by these lawyers, but I doubt that it’s going to work in Ulbricht’s favor much.  :popcorn:

http://www.marijuana.com/news/2015/05/lawyers-in-silk-road-case-say-site-made-drug-markets-safer

Attorneys for Ross Ulbricht, convicted in February of running the illegal-drug-selling website Silk Road, are taking an unusual line of argument in advance of his sentencing at the end of this month.

In court documents filed on Friday, Ulbricth’s defense team argues that by selling marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other substances online through the innovative site, Silk Road helped users evade some of the most harmful dangers of the illegal drug market.

"In contrast to the government’s portrayal of the Silk Road web site as a more dangerous version of a traditional drug marketplace, in fact the Silk Road web site was in many respects the most responsible such marketplace in history," attorney Joshua L. Dratel wrote in a letter to Judge Katherine B. Forrest.

He pointed to features he says "made purchasers substantially safer than they were when purchasing drugs in a conventional manner."

To access Silk Road, users had to go through the Tor browser, which encrypts and anonymizes web traffic. Once on the site, they could connect with sellers and make purchases using Bitcoin.

In addition to bringing the drug market off the streets and onto the Internet, the site also implemented harm reduction measures, Dratel said. "The Silk Road web site provided features, including physician counseling, ratings of vendors, and improved accountability and transparency, as well, conversely, an anonymous forum in which drug users and abusers could be candid about their drug use and abuse, and seek advice not only about drug use, but also about drug safety, use reduction, and even ceasing such activity altogether," he wrote.

Calling Silk Road "the safest incarnation of a drug marketplace to date," Dratel detailed the differences between the site and the drug cartels and gangs that largely control the supply of illegal drugs:

    "Traditional drug sellers do not offer counseling, much less by a physician who is empowered, without interference, to guide a user to abstinence. Traditional drug sellers do not provide forums for their customers to rate vendors, share experiences, ensure quality control and reliability. Traditional drug-selling operations do not afford customers an environment in which they can anonymously and, as a result, candidly, absent stigma and fear, discuss their drug use and abuse, its impact on their lives, and acquire the skills and perspective to reduce their use or even quit altogether."

Ulbricht, who prosecutors say ran the site under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, will be sentenced on May 29. He faces decades in federal prison, up to a potential life sentence.

To bolster the case that the site kept users safer than traditional drug markets do, the defense also submitted signed declarations from several experts, including Meghan Ralston, former harm reduction manager for the Drug Policy Alliance.

"Silk Road created a safe environment, free of weapons and violence during the transaction, where people could acquire drugs," Ralston wrote in her filing.

For example, none of the transactions through the site "resulted in women drug buyers being sexually assaulted or forced to trade sex for drugs, as remains a possibility in some street-level drug transactions," she said. "Nor did any Silk Road transactions result in anyone having a gun pulled on them at the moment of purchase, also a danger present in face-to-face street-level drug transactions."

The government says 100,000 people bought drugs or other illegal goods and services through the platform in under three years, amounting to more than $213 million in sales. Prosecutors have signaled they will introduce evidence that allegedly ties Ulbricht and the site to six drug overdoses.

Ralston said that closing the site and sending Ulbricht to prison will do nothing to stop people who want to use drugs from acquiring them. "Silk Road is not the only website of its kind and its displaced users will likely either turn to a competitor site or seek out drugs in other ways," she said. "This approach to fighting the war on drugs has never worked and it’s not likely to start working now."