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Comment by GordonS | Hacker News Reader

This is a really good idea and uptake of services like this, and sharing the information generated, could help increase the quality of products sold on darknet markets, and ultimately save lives.

I'd love to see something like this in the UK, and ideally it would be a bit cheaper.

Ideally such services should be ran by governments, which could also help to ensure that items mailed to their addresses are not seized.

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There is http://www.wedinos.org/db/sample_testing although it does require you to submit a bunch of questions and a postcode along with the sample.

Politicians are very sensitive to being seen to be 'running a drug dealer QA lab', despite the obvious harm reduction benefits, so they try to cover themselves with various constraints.

Netherlands you can anonymously drop pills and powders for lab testing. Tons of kids were dropping dead buying fake mdma on the streets and this put an end to it. Same thing happened in Canada as soon as they cracked down on precursors and drove up the price the streets were filled with poisonous alternatives but unfortunately the police still shill a failed abstinence policy and as a result you get stuff like this happening everytime a bad batch floats around

http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/canada/calgary/8-alberta-deaths-lin...

Then you have the moral police complaining that the government is promoting drug usage.

Yes, I agree there would be serious obstacles to this, and such people would certainly be one of them!

Funding is always going to be an issue for NGOs though.

Needle exchange programs already exist, surely this would be similar enough to get them enacted.

Maybe drug usage shouldn't be considered a "moral" decision....

Meanwhile you have people calling to abolish the FDA because markets are so much more efficient at providing safe, efficaceius pharmeceuticals. It makes no sense, real-world data from the black market shows it makes no sense.

Are you kidding me? In what world is the black market a free market? The entire reason it's called an "underground" market is because it can't legally operate as a free market.

Depends on your definition of a free market. It is free in the sense there is no government (or other entity) controlling it.

Say what? The black market is completely defined and dominated by the heaviest form of government control, literally men with guns kicking down your door.

free mar·ket noun an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses.

By that definition, the black market is a free market. You could argue about the word 'unrestricted' but I doubt you'd change my mind.

The competition is limited to entities willing to break the law and deal with other people doing the same.

That doesn't really say anything at all.

The bakery competition is limited to people who want to run a bakery. The beer store market is limited to people who want to run beer stores.

Breaking the law obviously isn't an issue for people in drug industry.

What you're describing is the point in time when an entity exits the free market. How does the government control the market aside from whack-a-moleing individual entities? How does whack-a-mole have a controlling effect on entities who haven't been whacked yet?

What do you mean? The underground market is perfectly free, you have only private entities contracting with each other, with no appeal to a higher power (i.e. the law) possible. Whatever rules are in effect instead are instituted and upheld by the market participants.

Honestly, given how many drugs have been allowed into the market as-is through the FDA, I'm not entirely sure how effective it has been. That said, I'm all for reducing patent protections all around (and eliminating all software patents), and decriminalizing most drugs...

I'm not advocating getting rid of all testing and standards bodies... I can't speak for anyone else.

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