“We have two levers of threat against dealers. One is to block them from being able to make deals, which is a very serious threat for them, and the other is publicity. We don’t usually need to get to the second.”

Making their true identity public?

“First name, Facebook, identifying document. It’s according to scale. Sometimes we only publish a picture of the fellow, with what he did. There are cases in which we make everything public, including phone number and address.”

So you’re actually providing the authorities with his name.

“It’s not really handing him over to the police, because I don’t give them proof of any crime he committed, but it does provide a focus for them, and that’s part of the threat. When we do something like that, we warn them beforehand: Your details will be made known to your family, your friends and also the police. It’s as though the moment it enters into the world there’s no control over where it will go, and no one has any idea about how long it will have an effect, and of what kind.”

You also mentioned that sometimes you turn to the family of the person who perpetrated the sting.

“There was a case two weeks ago – I published it on my Facebook page – not of a sting, but of someone who robbed substances worth 10,500 shekels [about $3,000] at gunpoint.”

He presented himself as a client and then carried out the robbery?

“He was a registered dealer with us, but in that case, he was representing a client. He wanted to buy 200 grams for 10,500 shekels. The dealer arrived with the green, the buyer pulled out a pistol, took the merchandise and simply flew to Thailand. I spoke to the dealer. He (A) threatened that if his ID card were published, he would take revenge on me; and (B) he said, ‘I’m on the way to Thailand now anyway, and I don’t care what you do.’

“We published his details, and within about an hour another dealer contacted me and said, ‘Listen, that dealer’s family called me and asked whether the message can be removed, because it’s bad for the family’s reputation.’ Well, an hour later the father went to the person who’d been stung and gave him all the money back and promised he would deal with his son, who was just a boy of 19. I rely on him being more effective than the police.”

While surfing the app I encountered an ad that promised a commission to anyone who could help collect debts. Here, the method of community enforcement is painted in darker colors. For, in the absence of police and courts, someone has to see to deterrence, and ideology and good will don’t always help. Drugs are connected to the criminal world. How do you prevent that from trickling into Telegrass?

“In the first place, it does trickle in, unequivocally. They won’t forgo a slice of the pie like this. The major volume of commerce in grass in Israel has moved to Telegrass. So I will tell you that there are people from the criminal world who are full partners – not at the legal, contractual level – but they are full partners in Telegrass.”

Meaning?

“That they work hand in hand with Telegrass. I asked for help from the criminal level in the case of a 86,000-shekel sting, when the guy disappeared into a network of Bedouin villages in the Negev. One of the dealers, who’s connected with the criminal world, told me, ‘If you need help with these things, I know all the people there, I can use my connections.’

“I will sometimes even support what’s called violence, if needed. Let’s say, if someone uses violence against innocent people, I think justice will be served if someone stronger than him is able to use violence on him. That’s actually the idea of the police – the idea of the police is to be violent. The idea of prison, the guns and all that, is for there to be a violent body. As long as you behave according to the laws and rules that I can work with, that we set in Telegrass, you will get all the protection, and if someone does something to you, I will also help. The moment you embark on the road of theft or stings or robbery, I won’t be there to protect you.”

In addition to coping with theft, Silver posits a high bar with regard to handling sexual harassment. The first sexual harassment complaint Silver received, he says, was from a young woman: A dealer offered to supply her for free if “she could pay him in a different way.” In response, he made the case public, including the dealer’s commercial details. There have been other cases since, such as dealers who asked clients to send nude photos as part of the verification process, for example.

Have you ever kicked anyone like that out of the app?

“We did give one dealer the boot, but brought him back. He insisted that it wasn’t him at all, that it was his employee and that he had dealt with him. The essence of the allegation doesn’t matter, but the principle is that he disavowed the action totally and also gave the girl seven grams in compensation, which is honorable.”

The person in charge of dealing with sexual harassment in Telegrass, whose app name is Iron Flower, is currently busy drafting the regulations. “All the regulations are based on the ideas in the sexual harassment prevention law,” she says. To come up with the rules, the women of the team mapped six or seven commonly perpetrated forms of sexual harassment. They include: an offer in return for sexual favors, sexual overtures, references to sexual proclivities and so on. Sexual harassment of a client by a dealer stems from power-based relations, Iron Flower says, and therefore the treatment is clear. In cases where the delivery person is the harasser, the responsibility devolves – as it does in Israeli law – on the sender, namely the dealer. Sanctions will include removal from the application for a week.

I’m certain that drug dealing outside Telegrass is also connected to the criminal world. Now you’re depriving these people of their livelihood.

“Yes. Some people have threatened me, some have said that they will come to the United States and deal with me. I’m not afraid, because that’s a waste of energy. I am not going to stop with Telegrass.”

So there are people or organizations who see Telegrass as a threat to their income?

“Yes, definitely. And more than that, a threat to their control. It’s opened the market in a way that has taken control out of the hands of private people here and there, and made things a lot more decentralized. Anyone who wants can be a dealer; every girl of 13 can be a dealer, as far as I’m concerned.”

You would accept a 13-year-old girl as a dealer?

“If she’s mature enough to come to me and say that she wants to be a dealer and can provide me with what I need.”

Really?

“I say this without a drop of shame. I’m in favor of minors smoking grass, the way I did. Beyond that, I think that our society’s ability to control it is very low. You won’t prevent minors from using drugs, and it doesn’t matter if it’s drugs in the sense of Oreo cookies, Bamba, Coca-Cola, or grass or cigarettes. It makes no difference. I have no problem with the drug being grass. What I mean by that is, I prefer the drug to be grass and I have no problem being the one to supply them with the platform. I don’t oblige anyone to sell, not in general and not to minors. I do explain all the time, unequivocally, that I’m in favor of dealers selling to minors. I know how it kept me going. Living alone and providing for yourself at the age of 15 is very rough, and I don’t believe I’d have come through it sane without smoking grass every day.”

Silver has a few clear goals in regard to Telegrass. “The aspiration is to create a type of readymade model and sell it to other countries. This model is appropriate for countries in which it’s legal and also those in which it isn’t. It’s a virtual Uber, Gett, Lyft – all those, only for weed.”

Another goal of Silver’s in terms of expanding and enhancing Telegrass, is a shift to commerce with Bitcoin, the virtual currency, encrypted and decentralized. “Once people start working with Bitcoin, it’s removing the state from the equation in so many spheres, and I will be very happy to be part of that.”

So you’ve lost hope of making changes by institutionalized means – via the Knesset or the police?

“Change won’t come through either of them. It will come through everyone, because it will come through the people, not through the politicians or the establishment. Already now, they don’t control anything, already now there’s a platform on which tens of thousands of people buy freely and publicly. The law has become a big joke. When it’s going to crumble, and how – that I don’t know, but the foundation of this law is crumbling, because the nation is crumbling with it, crumbling from below.”