Trump Mandate: End The Practice Of using BTC to Fund Illegal Drug Activity

[Blockchayne]

President Trump's Criticism of Bitcoin in his recent statements have largely been focused on the use of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies to fund illegal drug activity including darknet marketplaces and organized criminal entities and drug cartels.

On this singular issue, US President Trump is 100% Spot On.

We MUST put an immediate end to this practice and stand together as a community to ensure cryptocurrencies are never used to fund illegal drug activity.

So How exactly can this be accomplished?  

It's seemingly a tall task given the efficient and fluid nature of how cryptocurrency operates.

But there is one single solution that will guarantee to us and the world that cryptocurrency will NEVER be used to fund a single transaction or transfer involving any form of illegal drug activity.

Decriminalization!

In order to stop Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency from being used to fund the illegal drug trade, It's well overdue that we draw up a cease fire and reach a peace agreement to immediately end the most destructive, expensive, ineffective, and dangerous domestic policy in the history of the US, and that would mean ending the "War On Drugs", once and for all.

Ending the War on Drugs would be a massive undertaking which would require coordination at the state, local, and federal levels of government, in addition to international cooperations.

1st Step would be to overturn the archaic and draconian laws at every level of government which make it a criminal act for someone possessing, using, selling, manufacturing, or transporting drugs and/or paraphernalia.

2nd Step and this would actually be the result of step 1 with some additional actions such as the elimination of misguided and destructive penalties of these crimes which have left us with the largest prison population of any country in the history of man's existence.

To put it in perspective of just how many people are incarcerated in the US consider this analysis;

 the US Prison population is equal to the combined prison populations of:

 England + Wales + Ireland + Scotland + Kenya + Australia + Nigeria + Turkey + Japan + Poland + South Africa + Ukraine + Mexico + India + Brazil + 500,000 additional prisoners = US PRISON POPULATION



 Ending this war would require the overturning of all convictions of non-violent drugs offenders and would call for their immediate release from jails and prisons both state and federal.

Step 3 Pass and enact new laws which decriminalize drugs, their use, possession, paraphernalia, and other related activity and instead defer these issues to mental health professionals as Drug abuse  and addiction is truly a mental health issue, not a criminal issue.

After completing step three, we can go back to using Bitcoin to fund drug activity and darknet marketplaces... Except this time, it's no longer 'illegal drug activity' like Trump has explicitly stated. It's now more accurately referred to as 'non-criminal drug activity' and Bitcoin is perfectly fine funding these activities.  

[fiulpro]

It is practically not feasible.

Most of the criminals selling drugs and doing illegal trading generally keep their profile low , you wouldn't know where to find them unless you know someone who actually is involved.

It is really hard to do a survey like that without involving people related to it and trust me they won't answer your questions.

Also at the same time the deals in drugs are not only happening using Bitcoins but a major factor is cash too.

Therefore in reality it would take like 10-20 years to something being done and also at the same time Durga have been illegal and parities have come and parties have gone and they have failed to put a halt on this market , because it's not just one community or one group ,it's a lot of people spread around , it's a whole network.

I think this would take time. A lot of it.

[Herbert2020]

whenever you could ensure that US dollar is not used for illegal drug activity or at least reduce its usage, then you can do the same with cryptocurrencies.
according to Google, 1% of the total global trade is in drug trafficking and guess what it is all using US dollar and the volume is more than 40 trillion dollars. the whole cryptocurrency market combined doesn't even have that much volume. if 0.1% of that volume entered bitcoin then bitcoin price would have shot up to $500,000 already.

by the way Trump has not mandated or explicitly said anything. all you have is that one single tweet which was mostly aiming at Libra and Facebook. bitcoin wasn't even the main target.

[Blockchayne]

It was satirical.

It could be done.

Decriminalize all drugs.

Now bitcoin could never be used to fund illegal drug activity.

.....because there would be no illegal drugs

 

[pixie85]

It was satirical.

It could be done.

Decriminalize all drugs.

Now bitcoin could never be used to fund illegal drug activity.

.....because there would be no illegal drugs

 

This is a great idea. First and foremost the use of drugs should not be penalized. Now you're putting addicts in jail for satisfying their addiction which is not only stupid but also cruel. An addict cannot control himself and he doesn't think of the consequences but he also doesn't harm anyone but himself.

Drugs were there 100 years ago and they will be 100 years from now you can fight it and penalize it all you want. BTC is not at fault here.

[veleten]

great idea! maybe first make sure government sponsored drug supply is never happening again
stop Afganistan drug farming controlled by the US military and Kosovo anclave , specializing in drugs and organs transplantation , how about that for starters?
thus there will be no need for funding it with bitcoin or fiat , which is dwarfing bitcoin illegal usage
whenever I hear that bitcoin is used for illegal operations be it drugs or "sponsoring terrorism" I always ask to compare the figures to that of fiat
yet whenever bitcoin , allegedly , is used for illegal purposes , even if it is a tiny amount , we hear it from almost every news outlet
while day to day criminal activities using banking, offshore or fiat would not be of any interest

[ityandsyn]

It was satirical.

It could be done.

Decriminalize all drugs.

Now bitcoin could never be used to fund illegal drug activity.

.....because there would be no illegal drugs

 

This is a great idea. First and foremost the use of drugs should not be penalized. Now you're putting addicts in jail for satisfying their addiction which is not only stupid but also cruel. An addict cannot control himself and he doesn't think of the consequences but he also doesn't harm anyone but himself.

Drugs were there 100 years ago and they will be 100 years from now you can fight it and penalize it all you want. BTC is not at fault here.

      That's true , drugs addiction is already exists for how many decades on which they are using  fiat money and bitcoin was only operates for 10 years only , so we better focus solve on drugs operations and other criminal activities rather than bitcoin and other crypto currencies .

[bryant.coleman]

As always, politicians try to blame the syndrome rather than the disease itself and that's where the problem lies. The drug policy of the United States government has failed miserably for the past few decades. They started the "war on drugs" in countries such as Mexico and Colombia, which has resulted in the death of well over a million individuals till now. Trillions of USD worth of tax money was used to fund these wars. And after all this, what they have achieved? Nothing. The drug cartels are thriving, and the addiction rates in the US has reached sky high. The only difference is that the addicts have shifted to synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl, from heroin and hashish.

Countries such as Portugal and Uruguay tried to legalize and regularize the drug market, with amazing success. The drug cartels died out, and the addiction rates and incidence of the overdose deaths declined. But something like this is not possible in the US, where the hardline evangelical groups holds too much power.

If Trump is serious, then he should first try to reduce the addiction rates within the US. It is this addiction, which is fueling the rise of drug cartels everywhere else in the Americas. Another approach would be to legalize the soft drugs such as weed, cocaine and mushrooms. But what can you expect from a country where even weed is banned?

In short, the American drug policy has been a gigantic failure, and they should not make any excuses by putting the blame on Bitcoin.

[CryptoBry]

The government has the mandate to do its job in minimizing the trade of drugs whether these people are using the fiat money or cryptocurrency. I think it should be clear by now that using Bitcoin does not mean that the transaction is anonymous and not traceable because they are all contain in the ledger. In fact, there are many cases already proven in court that illegal drug dealers were caught all because they use Bitcoin in the transaction. So in a way, it is Bitcoin that is helping the government in the fight against the illicit drugs. Personally, I do not strongly believe that decriminalization of illegal drugs is the best option on this war because that is tantamount to surrendering the whole cause. The war on drugs should never have any deadline and it should not be treated as a temporary thing...it has to go on forever.

[dothebeats]

This will be a hard feat IMO, and does not, in any way, ensure that crypto and other such things wouldn't be used in illegal drug activity and other nefarious uses. It's a noble attempt to contain what cannot be contained, or should I say, what cannot be controlled wholly. People will still find a way to use bitcoin and other crypto for such purposes no matter what. Heck, it's still the most widely-used crypto in the darknet today! if they cannot go after those marketplaces in the darknet which uses cryptocurrency, how sure are they that they'd be able to live up to the task of eliminating the practice of using bitcoin in most illegal transactions?

2nd Step and this would actually be the result of step 1 with some additional actions such as the elimination of misguided and destructive penalties of these crimes which have left us with the largest prison population of any country in the history of man's existence.

Which means more taxpayer's money will be diverted into such effort. I don't think most people would love to hear that their tax money would be used to feed criminals that definitely did something wrong.

Step 3 Pass and enact new laws which decriminalize drugs, their use, possession, paraphernalia, and other related activity and instead defer these issues to mental health professionals as Drug abuse  and addiction is truly a mental health issue, not a criminal issue.

This contradicts step 2. Also, decriminalizing drugs means drug lords would be happy because once nabbed, they can seek for asylum/refuge on mental health institutions whilst living the good life and not get jailed. Idk, but I'm certainly against decriminalizing drugs.

After completing step three, we can go back to using Bitcoin to fund drug activity and darknet marketplaces... Except this time, it's no longer 'illegal drug activity' like Trump has explicitly stated. It's now more accurately referred to as 'non-criminal drug activity' and Bitcoin is perfectly fine funding these activities. 

Accurately. Trump is somewhat in support of drugs, I suppose, due to the nature of his comments and statements re: issue of drugs and bitcoin.