Sponsors (2)
The bill strengthens law‑enforcement capacity to disrupt dark‑web drug and illicit‑market activity (potentially reducing overdose harms) at the cost of expanded surveillance powers, greater criminal penalties and prosecutions, higher public and private costs, and risks of legal overreach that could harm privacy, researchers, and vulnerable communities.
Law enforcement (federal, state, tribal, and local) will have clearer statutory authority, coordinated resources, and new tools to detect, investigate, and dismantle dark‑web illicit marketplaces (including opioid markets).
Communities and people at risk of overdose may see reduced availability of illegal drugs sold on anonymized online markets, potentially lowering overdose incidents and harms.
Prosecutors and local police will gain improved investigative capacity through forensic/cyberforensic training, interagency cooperation, and international partnerships, increasing chances of successful prosecutions of darknet traffickers.
Internet users (and bystanders) face substantially expanded surveillance, information‑sharing, and forensic collection that could erode online privacy, anonymity, and civil liberties.
Buyers, low‑level participants, noncitizens, and other defendants are likely to face increased arrests, prosecutions, and longer federal sentences (including a mandated sentencing enhancement), raising incarceration, deportation, and collateral‑consequence risks.
The bill will increase government and private costs — diverting DOJ/FBI and local law‑enforcement resources, raising incarceration costs, and creating compliance/reporting burdens for financial and virtual‑currency firms that could be passed to customers.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal offense and sentencing increase for distributing controlled substances via a defined "dark web", establishes an FBI interagency task force, and requires reports on virtual‑currency links to opioid sales.
Introduced June 5, 2025 by Margaret Wood Hassan · Last progress June 5, 2025
Criminalizes knowingly delivering, distributing, or dispensing controlled substances using a defined “dark web” and directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to add a two-level sentence increase for that crime. Creates an FBI-led, interagency Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement Task Force with a Senate‑confirmed Director to investigate and dismantle illicit dark‑web marketplaces, requires reports on virtual‑currency use in opioid distribution, and sets a five‑year sunset for the task force. The bill also defines key terms, requires an interagency report on how virtual currencies finance opioid sales within one year, mandates annual task force reports, and includes a severability clause and a non‑binding five‑year review recommendation for the dark‑web definition. Funding for the task force is drawn from amounts otherwise available to the Attorney General (no new appropriation specified).