State Legislatures Respond to Grave New Threat
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:49 PM

Maybe in some benighted states legislators are slow to react to a significant new threat, but not in Missouri and South Dakota. The farseeing Solons of these midwestern edens are primed to prohibit the possession of alcohol vaporizers, which have been wreaking havoc throughout the land. The vaporizers allow someone to consume about half a shot of alcohol in twenty minutes through inhalation. This is such a wildly fun and addictive way to consume alcohol that injuries and deaths resulting from alcohol vaporizers are -- oh, wait, I can't actually find any evidence that anyone has ever been injured by these devices. You would think that when they introduce these bills they would mention some of the awful consequences that have sprung from the use of inhalers -- but nary a peep. Well, we better ban them anyway, just in case. (Incidentally, you could get a year in jail for alcohol vaporizer possession if the South Dakota bill becomes a law; try explaining that crime to your cellmate.) The prohibition will force people to get their alcohol from bottles -- and bottles are absolutely safe, right?

To be honest, legislators in Missouri and South Dakota are not that farsighted after all: more than 20 states have already banned alcohol vaporizers.

[It goes without saying that I am not suggesting in this post that alcohol vaporizers are perfectly safe.]

Labels: alcohol, inhaler, Prohibition, South Dakota

 
Whiteclay Revisited
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:17 PM

Fourteen people live in Whiteclay, Nebraska, it seems. Daily alcohol sales in Whiteclay amount to the equivalent of 10,000 beers: that's a Ruthian per-resident average of more than 714 beers per day.

Of course, it is not the residents who are buying all of those beers. Whiteclay is a creature of prohibition, in this case, the prohibition of alcohol sales within the neighboring Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There are about 20,000 folks living on the reservation, and the majority of those who are in the labor force are unemployed. The alcohol problems on the reservation are staggering.

Activists have been trying for years to close the beer sellers of Whiteclay; last month, demonstrators blockaded the road linking the reservation with the village. But the alcohol continues to flow into the reservation, and it is far from certain that if Whiteclay were to disappear tomorrow, the situation would improve very much.

All of the information above is drawn from this recent story in USA Today. But it sounded sadly familiar to me, and sure enough, Vice Squad linked to a rather similar story on February 12, 2004. A quick comparison indicates that since that time, there has been a slight fall in the number of Whiteclay residents, a rise in the population on the reservation, and a rise in alcohol sales in the village.

Labels: alcohol, Native Americans, Prohibition, South Dakota

 
Self-Experimentation by an Attorney General
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:33 AM

You know those alcohol-detecting ankle bracelets that can monitor and report how much you have been drinking? Do you think that they really work? Well, I don't know if they work, and neither did the Attorney General of South Dakota. So he wore an ankle bracelet for three days, and somehow convinced three of his staffers to wear bracelets, too. Then he testified about his experience to a legislative commitee, revealing some details about the life of an Attorney General in the process:

The first day, he said, he had a couple of beers with dinner and "then I went home and made a bowl of popcorn and had a substantial glass of wine and watched the ballgame."

His blood-alcohol content gradually rose to 0.06, which is under the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle, but would be too much for a wearer in a zero-tolerance program.

After three days, he said, "The bracelet is sophisticated. It works as advertised, and it accurately reflected exactly how much alcohol I had to drink and when I had it to drink.''

His testimony apparently was compelling, as his request for funds to buy the bracelets was approved unanimously by the South Dakota House.

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution touts self-experimentation and Seth Robert's analysis of the technique. Does the Attorney General of South Dakota read Marginal Revolution?

Labels: alcohol, bracelet, South Dakota

 
Boring States Lead in Binge Drinking
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:43 PM

About 54 million people, 22.6% of the population nationwide, participated in binge drinking at least once during the past 30 days, the study estimated. Binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks in one sitting during the previous month. The percentage of people binge drinking far exceeds the national average in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The preceding quote comes from this story in USA Today. The article employs SAMHSA's new state-by-state estimates of substance use and abuse based on the 2002 and 2003 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. The SAMHSA press release is here, and the report itself, which I haven't had a chance to look at yet, is here.

Labels: alcohol, Illinois, SAMHSA, South Dakota

 
Squeezing Nude Juice Bars in South Dakota
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:39 PM

It turns out that not everyone thinks that nude dancing in public establishments should be tolerated. In South Dakota, some local activists are taking their case statewide:

Citizens Against Nude Juice Bars and Pornography has been gaining signatures on informal petitions that ask South Dakota lawmakers to approve an effective state obscenity law...

The organization chose this path after Bob Rieger took advantage of an exception in McCook County's nude-dancing ban last summer to reopen Racehorses Gentlemen's Club as a movie theater outside of Salem. It offers black-and-white and independent movies, as well as nude dancing.

One suspects that it is not the cinema that is the main draw at Racehorses, despite South Dakota's reputation for embracing independent films.

The name of the group is a bit puzzling, for two reasons. First, what will happen to those concerned citizens who disapprove of nude juice bars, but approve of pornography, and vice versa? Second, just what is a nude juice bar, anyway? Morality in Media to the rescue:

An entrepreneur who does not have a liquor license or who has lost it for violations of a nudity-alcohol ordinance, or who may want to avoid the prohibitions or provisions of such an ordinance, will frequently turn to the "Juice Bar" gambit where, instead of serving alcohol, he or she will serve soft drinks or juices and continue presenting nude "dancing." These establishments may also admit minors since no liquor is served. This latter element makes such establishments doubly pernicious.

[Update: A Vice Squad reader writes in about nude juice bars in one California region. Alcohol licensing laws come packaged with restrictions that preclude total nudity in establishments that serve alcohol (this is the case in Chicago, too). But at places without an alcohol license -- such as juice bars -- total nudity is permitted. The California juice bars, according to the VS reader, allow in patrons who are 18 years old or older, while the alcohol-serving clubs are only for those 21 and up.]

Labels: dancing, pornography, South Dakota

 
Barbers, Doctors, Security Guards Targeted?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:00 AM

Vice Squad mentioned in August that sexual touching that does not involve intercourse seemed to fall outside of the anti-prostitution statute in South Dakota and some other states. This insufficient criminalization of voluntary adult activity could not be tolerated by the Sioux Falls City Council, who closed the "loophole" on Monday. I hope that they were a bit more specific than what this article reports: "An ordinance approved Monday night makes it illegal to touch someone in exchange for money." The state of South Dakota, you will be happy to learn, is looking to similarly extend its opportunities for imprisoning people later this fall.

In other news that will make you happy, blogging from me will be light or non-existent through Sunday, as my research requires me to travel.

Labels: prostitution, South Dakota

 
Are Some Varieties of Prostitution Legal in South Dakota?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:51 AM

Maybe. In particular, touching that falls short of intercourse may not be forbidden by state law. A state's attorney dropped a case against a massage parlor owner following "a close reading of the statutes," according to this AP article on Aberdeen News.com. A similar "loophole" in the wording of the anti-prostitution statute occurs in the state laws of Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana.

Speaking of legal prostitution, government funding for Red Thread, the Dutch union for prostitutes, looks like it might come to an end.

Labels: Netherlands, prostitution, South Dakota

 
Pyrrhus Watch: Victory #13
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:22 AM

Overlawyered recently told the petard-like story of the drunken driving arrest of the Wisconsin Attorney General, who refused to take a blood test. (Thanks also to a Vice Squad reader for sending along that tale.) In South Dakota, what if you are arrested on some minor drug-related crime and refuse to provide a urine sample? Well of course, the police will tell you that they will go to a judge to get a warrant, and they will forcibly extract the urine from you. What's more, they are telling the truth! So, the credible threat of torture induces you to consent to provide the urine sample, and you test positive for a controlled drug. Your next treat is that you are convicted of drug possession -- based solely on the evidence provided by the urine test.

The whole ugly story is from this week's Drug War Chronicle. Of course, such gross indignities are not visited upon citizens in the Land of the Free without some great, noble purpose of the highest order. That purpose, as Vice Squad regulars know, is to make it a little bit harder for some of our friends and neighbors to consume a substance that they desire to consume.

Labels: alcohol, driving, South Dakota, testing

 
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Will Not Hold Alcohol Referendum
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:06 PM

In the final chapter (for the time being) in a case that Vice Squad has been following, anti-alcohol forces showed up in force and the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council voted 10-2 not to hold a referendum on legalizing alcohol sales on the Pine Ridge (South Dakota) Indian Reservation. Problems with alcohol are endemic on the reservation, despite the ban on sales.

Labels: alcohol, Native Americans, South Dakota

 
South Dakota Alcohol Update
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:21 PM

Vice Squad updates the ever-fascinating stories surrounding the evolution of alcohol regulation in South Dakota....

(1) You're 17 years old, you have a beer or a beer and a half, you drive home, you get stopped by police, you have a BAC of .02 -- and then you spend a week in jail. Or maybe you have one drag on a marijuana cigarette -- there you go, a week in jail, perhaps. Welcome to the real world of zero tolerance for youths and alcohol and drugs. The feds, however, think that .02 shouldn't cost you more than 48 hours in jail, and they are pressuring states to agree. South Dakota lawmakers are caving in to the mad leniency of the ultra-liberal central government.

(2) The state legislature refused to go along with the request by counties to raise the alcohol tax and earmark half the proceeds for the counties. So now Pennington county (and perhaps others) hope to bring about the reform via a state referendum.

(3) The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is dry, but it also is beset by one of the most severe alcohol abuse problems in the country. There is some current movement on two fronts. First, for economic reasons, the reservation is thinking of lifting its alcohol ban -- a referendum could be scheduled for the next month. Second, if there are no alcohol sales on the reservation, how do residents acquire alcohol? No doubt through a variety of means, but one of the most popular is to travel to the nearby town of Whiteclay, Nebraska. A bill in the Nebraska state legislature aims to hold the line (or at least to slow down its forward momentum) on liquor licenses in Whiteclay. Here's a brief description of the current situation from the linked article, which is an opinion piece in the Yankton (S.D.) Press and Dakotan:

"It's no exaggeration to state that the economy of Whiteclay, Neb., is based almost entirely on an epidemic rate of alcoholism on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Whiteclay is a village of just 16 people located about a mile from the South Dakota border and from a 15,000-person reservation that bans all alcohol sales. However, there are four liquor stores in Whiteclay that sell, by one estimation, about 11,000 cans of beer per day mostly to residents of the 5,000-square-mile reservation, which has one of the highest alcohol-mortality rates in the country."

Labels: alcohol, driving, Native Americans, South Dakota, taxes, teens

 
South Dakota Alcohol Developments
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:41 PM

Vice Squad has adopted South Dakota as its venue for tracking alcohol policy, though it has been neglected for a few weeks now. Those University of South Dakota kids are kicking up a ruckus again. There was a fraternity party this weekend, where -- it was ascertained through some keen-eyed detective work -- alcohol was being consumed by underage individuals. It took officers four hours to round up and ticket 120 culprits -- 120 being roughly 40% of the underage population of South Dakota. [And no wonder, with such harassment! - ed.] (2002 population estimate for South Dakota: 761,063.)

South Dakota counties continue to press for an increase in the alcohol tax, earmarked for their use. Current South Dakota alcohol taxes go to the state and to cities, but not to counties. Increases in property tax rates have been curbed by a 1995 law that keeps such increases in line with inflation, so counties are casting about for new sources of revenue. The proposed alcohol tax increase is described as being about one nickel per drink. But stated in other terms, it sounds more substantial, at least if the figures provided by the executive director of the County Commissioners Association can be believed. He notes that the current tax on wholesale liquor, $3.93 per gallon, would increase to $10.33 per gallon; the current tax on wine, 93 cents per gallon, would go up to $2.76 per gallon; and, the 27 cents per gallon beer tax would rise to 80 cents per gallon.

Labels: alcohol, South Dakota, taxes, teens

 
Updating Alcohol Developments in South Dakota
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:29 PM

For reasons that I cannot understand, Vice Squad is developing an affinity for following alcohol regulation developments in South Dakota. A January 9th post noted the possibility of legalizing alcohol on the Pine Ridge reservation, and an attempt to raise the excise tax for county use. Here are some more recent developments:

(1) The referendum on alcohol legalization on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has been slightly postponed.

(2) The state legislature is considering a bill that would bring South Dakota practices in line with a federal, well, recommendation, but more of a mandate given the grant funds at stake. It concerns juvenile drivers who are caught with a little alcohol in their system (between .02 and .08 BAC). Here's the first line from the AP story at Aberdeen News.com: "The Legislature was asked Friday to approve a bill that would keep drivers younger than 18 from being locked up more than 48 hours when caught drunk or drugged." This sentence is misleading, however, in that a BAC of .02 would not meet the ordinary understanding of "drunk."

(3) Another AP story at Aberdeen News.com notes a proposal to allow special events (like summer festivals) that currently can procure licenses to serve beer and wine to also be licensed for mixed drinks. Are all the liquor interests behind this proposal? No, not all of them!: "...a lobbyist for the state Retail Liquor Dealers Association, said his organization opposes the bill because it would take trade away from businesses that serve liquor and pay taxes year-round. He said some stores depend on revenues from annual events and holidays to survive."

Labels: alcohol, driving, South Dakota

 
Alcohol in South Dakota
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:44 PM

Vice Squad's loyal reader keeps asking, "Hey, where are the South Dakota alcohol stories?" From that prodding comes these two quick links on potential changes to alcohol policy in parts of the Mount Rushmore State. First, the Oglala Sioux Tribe is thinking of legalizing purchase and sale of alcohol on the Pine Ridge reservation; second, for the thirteenth straight year, Pennington County in South Dakota wants the state to impose (and earmark for county use) a 5 cents alcohol excise tax increase. Currently, the county receives no alcohol tax revenues, though it runs serious expenses in locking up under-the-influence offenders. The linked report notes: "Commissioners say at any given time alcohol use and abuse accounts for about 80-percent of the Pennington County Jail population."

Labels: alcohol, Native Americans, South Dakota, taxes