At least where drugs are concerned, markets like Silkroad and AlphaBay would appear to be an improvement over street-level trafficking.

Vendors are apparently rated on the quality of their product and service, just like eBay--meaning that people selling bunk or poisonous cuts are not going to do very well.

And then, there's no street-level territory to fight over .. but of course, online dealers still have to source their product from large scale criminal organizations -- so that's hardly a complete win.

One might have guessed that I'm for the legalization of all drugs .. since most of the harms associated with the use of illicit drugs are directly related to their illicitness.

In fact, since significant proportions of humanity have derived pleasure and other benefits from various psychoactive compounds for thousands of years, one could make the argument that prohibition is anti-human.

It didn't work for booze, and it's never going to work for other drugs.