NYC’s Ilicit Four Loko Underground
Since the FDA outlawed the sickly-sweet, caffeinated, vomit-inducing alcoholic drink Four Loko, a brisk black market has sprung up on the internet. Twelve-packs readily available, at inflated prices that will only rise, NBC New York reports:
It may be banned from store shelves but Four Loko is one of the hottest products on Craigslist.
A 4NewYork hidden-camera investigation exposed just how easy it is to buy the alcoholic energy drink from private dealers who stocked up before the FDA forced Four Loko manufacturers to eliminate caffeine from their recipe.
After responding to posting from an Upper East Side Four Loko dealer, WNBC was able to purchase a case of twelve cans for $80, a mark-up of more than 300 percent. Since November, dozens of sellers have posted craigslist ads charging anywhere from $4 to $8 per can. When the drink was legal, buyers paid only $2 to $3 per can.
The controversial drink, nicknamed “Alcopop”…
Man Threatens President’s Life on Craigslist: Gets Two Years in Jail
Robert Wilonsky writes in the Dallas Observer:
You remember Brian Dean Miller, right? Sure you do. He’s the 43-year-old Northeast Dallas man who, back in March, posted to Craigslist’s “Rants & Raves” section an item titled “Obama must die.” Among its highlights, reminds the U.S. Attorney’s Office today, he wrote: “People the time has come for revolution. It is time for Obama to die. I am dedicating my life to the death of Obama.” That was his first post. Then came another one in which he wrote, “I am actively working to kill the president and destroy the U.S. government. … This is war. Join me. Or don’t. I don’t care. I’m not laying down anymore.”
Right. That guy.
Anyway. The U.S. Attorney’s Office just sent word: Miller, whose postings were brought to Secret Service’s attention by a concerned citizen in Arlington, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge David C. Godbey, who…
Underage Sex For Sale On The Internet
Sickening stuff, from CNN:
Behind every adult service ad on the internet is a story.
Sometimes it’s a story of a grown woman who has chosen prostitution as a path to a better life. More often, it’s a story of a woman being forced to sell her body by a pimp.
And then there are the children, and the mothers that miss them.
“They told me to look on Craigslist and it almost blew my mind,” the mother of one missing 12-year-old told CNN. “She was there with a wig on. She was there in a purple negligee…
Craigslist Removes Adult Services Ads
Founder of Craigslist, Craig Newmark
I wonder how much the traffic will decrease on Craigslist now that there is no adult service choice. From The Washington Post:
One of the world’s biggest providers of Internet classified advertising abruptly shut down the “adult services” section of its U.S. Web sites this weekend, apparently in response to criticism from prosecutors that it had become a tool for prostitution.
But it was unclear whether Craigslist – an icon of the new media transformation of American society – had closed the site to placate those critics, or to hit back at them, casting itself as the victim of censorship. On its famously bare-bones Web sites, the blue-lettered link for adult services was gone. It had been replaced with a black box, containing one word: “censored.”
Craigslist’s usually outspoken leaders gave no explanation for their move and no signal as to whether it would be permanent. Last year, the…
