There are a million other things he could have sold online that wouldn't have resulted in 20 years in jail. Whether you agree with the illegal status of drugs or not, if someone choose to subvert the law, you can't expect law enforcement not to prosecute.
Sure, that's fine.
But it also obfuscates the more important point: I can expect (and I do expect) that a reasonable, mature society stop this idiotic practice in the first place.
Refusing to learn from the failures of drug prohibition throughout history is one thing, but continuing a current and clearly failed experiment for an entire century is flabbergasting and childish.
Who will be the last person who's life is ruined for no reason? Will it be this dude? Or someone in the same position tomorrow?
I can't have sympathy for someone who was selling opioids to addicts, exacerbating a terrible epidemic.
"Destroying a person's life"
The feds didn't do that, his own actions did that.
That's a philosophical question about how much people own their own lives versus how much you should be able to dictate their lives for your own selfish sense of peace of mind. We're not going to change anyone's minds on that in HN comments.
> The feds didn't do that, his own actions did that.
The "feds" did do that, in response to his actions, because people like you manadte via votes that they do that.
Forget this guy for a second.
The real question here is: will this act (or generally, all of the actions taken by the state pursuant to enforcing prohibition) help anyone? Will it reduce death, disease, crime, misery, addiction?
It seems like you just value revenge and compliance over a functioning civil society.
If you can't point to a tangible reduction in death, disease, misery, or addiction from these sorts of state actions, then I just don't see that you have a point to make at all.
Similar to those folks who work in a corporate environment who complete a document that they know will be jettisoned into a corporate black hole but checks off a requirement.