The basic drug deal on the street requires the surreptitious and rapid exchange of a quantity of defined wealth for a product of uncertain value. It is the addict who takes most of the risk in not knowing what he is buying; the drug pusher accepts only cash. Although he has some incentive to provide a decent product in order to keep customers loyal and to prevent the armed thugs among them from registering complaints with a bullet or a blade. An occasional sexual favor or a contraband item might be used, but the criminal enterprise requires fungible and ANONYMOUS assets in order to survive. What other choice does the drug dealer really have? How can he assess the value of some shiny metal or sparkling rocks efficiently enough to know their worth? Even if he knows that the Rolex is genuine, what can he do with it? How many such items can he negotiate in a night? How many smartphones and iPads can a pusher carry away to his hideout? How will he deposit these into a bank account or get them in to Mexico, Columbia, or Afghanistan?
The present scheme takes stolen merchandise to pawnshops where the thieves receive cash for a small fraction of the item's worth. If there is no cash in circulation, what can the thief be given--a check, a gift card, a bitcoin? What drug dealer will accept these? While an addict might start out with a job, some assets, and a family, he will rapidly exhaust these and the good will of friends and relatives as he invariably sinks deeper into his addiction. So, he must commit crime to feed his habit. It is estimated that 70-85% of all property crime is drug driven. That is, people commit these crimes in order to get money for drugs. It would be interesting to see an analysis as to how much of the drug money comes from crime and how much comes from the squandering of assets by their rightful owners. But my interviews with DEA agents, FBI profilers, prosecutors, drug addicts, and former drug dealers disclose a unanimous opinion that there is no substitute for cash in a drug deal. Charlie Sheen and Robert Downey, Jr. likely never once paid for their drugs with anything other than cash. But they illustrate the pattern of wasted talent and squandered wealth in order to pursue their addictions. The tragic list is long: Whitney Houston, John Belushi, River Phoenix, et al. No one ever seems to ask the question, "Who sold them their drugs?" If there were a credit card receipt or cancelled check, the answer would be obvious. Would it not?
But it should also be obvious that bartering could not sustain any large and complex enterprise--criminal or otherwise. That is, after all, why money was invented in the first place. Drug enterprises have to establish a production, distribution, and collection system with security and political corruption needs. Without cash, these interdependent functions become completely unworkable. The provenance of stolen merchandise is always a problem in cashing them in. And they have to be CASHED in! There is no other currency that can work for this process. It is impossible to launder cash if there is no cash being circulated. There is no point of anonymous wealth with which to abscond.
If some other form of money were workable for drug traffickers, why is it not now being using by them? The evidence is clear that they are not using alternatives. None exist. Bitcoins are not truly anonymous (Wikipedia), do not exist in quantities even remotely sufficient for the drug trade, do not have reliable value, and require Internet access that addicts do not possess. Digital wallets are not anonymous. As long as society does not want perverts purchasing child pornography or felons purchasing guns, the political will to make it otherwise will not be summoned. Further, the tax man does not allow you to give money even to your own children. The smuggling and laundering of cash remain more of a problem for drug lords than supplying drugs around the world. But without cash, they have no business at all.
https://www.google.com/search?q=drug+cash+photos&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
The U.N. estimates that the world drug market exceeds $400 billion annually. To run this on bartering technology would require an enormous cataloging, warehousing, distribution, repair, and marketing infrastructure which could never withstand even cursory scrutiny from law enforcement. How do you pay your employees and suppliers? Are you going to give poppy growers in Afghanistan plasma TV sets? And when even one item is discovered to be illegitimate, the entire scheme can be exposed to every corner of the world and to every criminal involved when there is no cash with which to conceal their identities.
Sweden is already discovering a reduction of political corruption and other crime as it becomes cashless.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/03/17/sweden-cashless-money-paper-coin_n_1355255.html
No comments:
Post a Comment