Pick some other niche that most people don't find so reprehensible and your reasoning falls on it's face.
Should a retailer that sells bongs "for use with tobacco" and advertises on a weed forum be held accountable for people illegally smoking weed with it?
A century ago you could have used the same analogy to say that some business that has an advertising deal with a gay bar is responsible for enabling them.
Both those examples are businesses acting "recklessly." Should they be held accountable? That is a slippery slope to biased enforcement.
The reasoning doesn't fall on its face just because you pick an activity that shouldn't be outlawed in the first place.
Interpreting 'should' in the legal sense, then yes holding the bong seller accountable is a valid argument that can be made. And the second scenario is possibly valid too, depending on some details like what they actually sell and what specifically the illegal activity is.
It's not a particularly slippery slope.
I don't really like that kind of enforcement, but it can be done in a reasonable enough manner.
The difference is that marijuana use and gay sex, if illegal, are "victimless crimes." Hacking into people's computers to take over their webcam and steal their credit cards and passwords is not.
Well, gay sex isn't illegal (and has never been illegal at the federal level).
But in any case I'm not offering my legal opinion, I'm offering my ethical one of how I think the law ought to be.
IANAL, so I have no idea whether the government's case in this instance is likely to succeed or whether this application of the relevant statute(s) would withstand a court challenge.
But, if I were America's benevolent-dictator-for-life, I would hold a business and any responsible employees legally responsible for its customers' illegal uses of their product, in the case it is intentionally and recklessly marketed to persons whose interest in the product, any reasonable observer would assume, is likely to be for said illegal use.
And, neither here nor there, but I'd legalize less-harmful drugs (pretty much all except opiates and maybe cocaine/crack), treat addiction as a medical rather than criminal issue, and keep all consensual relations between adults legal.
Should a retailer that sells bongs "for use with tobacco" and advertises on a weed forum be held accountable for people illegally smoking weed with it?
A century ago you could have used the same analogy to say that some business that has an advertising deal with a gay bar is responsible for enabling them.
Both those examples are businesses acting "recklessly." Should they be held accountable? That is a slippery slope to biased enforcement.