Vice Squad Returns
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:16 AM

Well, sort of returns. Vice Squad is now firmly settled in Tbilisi, after passing through the UK. The vice news there was that yet another head of government, this time Gordon Brown, joined a long, distinguished list of past potentates who made the mistake of convening an expert panel on marijuana policy. As usual, the experts reported back that mj should be essentially decriminalised, and as usual, the government immediately ignored the report -- this time even moving to increase penalties for marijuana possession. (That two years you could get for possession of a joint just wasn't sufficient, so Class B status was necessary to put potheads away for five years.)

London has a new mayor, and a new policy on its underground and bus system -- as of June 1, no more (legal) drinking on the Tube. Americans can file this one under "What, you mean you used to be able to drink openly on the Tube?" Speaking of the new mayor, he celebrated his swearing in by going to a casino. During the campaign, he was a bit wobbly on Britain's smoking ban, too.

Labels: alcohol, Britain, casino, marijuana

 
Bingo and Smoking; Bingo or Alcohol
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:11 PM

Vice Squad has been trumpeting the smoking-ban induced decline in bingo for so long now that it is amazing there is any bingo left. But there is, and today the New York Times catches up to bingo/smoking ban complemetarity: "[Managers of charity bingo parlours] say smoking goes with bingo like peanut butter with jelly."

For the vice policy aficionado, however, this week's premier bingo-related story derives from Carlisle in the UK. Remember those ASBOs of questionable constitutionality (British constitutionality, that is)? One 23-year old gentleman had a history of being a troublesome drunk, so he was given an ASBO prohibiting him both from drinking and from patronising drinking establishments in Carlisle city centre. (Incidentally, the idea that a troublesome drunk can have his drinking privileges revoked is consistent both with Vice Squad's robustness principle and with John Stuart Mill's interpretation of his harm principle.) But this particular yob, er, gentleman, also enjoys a bingo hall in Carlisle. Alas, the bingo parlour is a drinking establishment (no longer a smoking establishment in England!), so the terms of his ASBO would keep him from bingo-ing. This will not stand, cried the Cumbrian magistrates, and voila, an exception was granted: he can go to the bingo hall, but he cannot drink there. (Vice Squad is touched by this act of mercy.) If the exception is abused via bingo-hall drinking or other unseemly behavior, there will be consequences to pay -- perhaps a curse will be imposed.

Vice Squad has been on the road, or at home, nodding; apologies for the interregnum.

Labels: alcohol, bingo, Britain, complementarities, licensing, Mill, robustness, smoking ban

 
Beer During Prohibition
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:41 PM

Beer sales were illegal during national alcohol prohibition in the US, of course. Well, except for near beer, which had a level of alcohol below the Volstead Act's .5 percent limit. (Near beer is produced by making beer, and then removing the alcohol; hence, legal near beer provided various obvious channels to evade the Prohibition rules.) But there is another sense in which beer sales were not illegal during Prohibition -- at least part of Prohibition. Between April and December 1933, full strength (3.2 percent) beer sales were legal, although Prohibition was still in force. The freshly inaugurated President Roosevelt had Congress amend the Volstead Act, to redefine those illegal "intoxicating liquors" as containing more than 3.2 percent alcohol. So the brewers got an 8-month jump on the distillers in re-entering the legal market. Not everywhere, though -- state dry laws or a dearth of implementing legislation delayed the return of beer in a majority of states.

Last week saw the 75th anniversary of the return of legal beer to the US. The event was marked in the Los Angeles Times through an op-ed by Maureen Ogle. One can learn a lot about beer and beer history from her blog; here are the beer-related posts. Thanks to Alcohol and Drugs History Society for the pointer.

Labels: alcohol, Prohibition

 
Prohibition as Liberalisation
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:08 PM

During national alcohol prohibition in the US, beverages with trace amounts -- up to .5% -- of alcohol were not banned. But what about the rule in Islam, which also prohibits alcohol? How much of a trace of alcohol is necessary before the Islamic ban is triggered? According to a fatwa issued by a prominent Egyptian cleric, the answer is --- .5%! Who knew the lasting influence of the Volstead Act? In the case of the fatwa, some are worried that the .5% limit represents a dangerous liberalisation.

The Volstead Act did not make the purchase of alcohol illegal, and even alcohol possession was quasi-legal during Prohibition. So if we were to adopt Volstead Act-like standards towards our currently prohibited drugs, that would represent a dangerous liberalisation.

Labels: alcohol, Prohibition

 
Alcohol Advertising in College Newspapers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:35 PM

The state of Virginia has a law that bans most alcohol advertising in college newspapers. Make that, they had a law -- a federal court has declared the law to be a violation of free speech guarantees. As a matter of law, the decision probably is sound. The state provides no evidence that the ad ban actually promotes the cause of reduced underage drinking -- and hence one of the planks of the "Central Hudson" test governing US commercial speech jurisprudence, that a valid regulation has to directly advance some substantial government interest, is not met. But as a matter of policy, I wonder if the standard approach to commercial speech is appropriate for vice-related goods. Not just "wonder" -- I believe that stricter controls on commercial vice speech will lead to increased freedom, as more vices will be legal if their advertising can effectively be controlled. (I prefer a version of the Posadas approach.)

Hard liquor advertising probably will continue to stay away from Virginia's college newspapers: the code of conduct for the spirits trade association does not allow ads in college papers. The Beer Institute's code has no such rule, but does preclude advertising that doesn't comply with a college's own regulations.

Labels: alcohol, litigation, marketing, teens

 
British Pubs Suffering
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:54 PM

It's not just bingo that is being hurt by the British smoking ban. The pub industry has been weathering some hard times, no doubt worsened (to an unknown degree) by the smoking ban: "According to the British Beer and Pubs Association, the smoking ban in England and Wales combined with the credit crunch and a decline in drinking are responsible for closing pubs at their fastest rate in history – 27 a week."

Meanwhile, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, wants to raise the tax on alcoholic beverages. This has made him persona non grata at many a British pub -- the campaign to keep Mr. Darling out of pubs is being championed by some of those bloggers on the internets.

Maybe British pubs could try that theatre dodge to avoid the smoking ban? Or maybe things will soon smooth out, despite the smoking ban. There even looks to be some good news for British bingo. Photos of a spiffy (sort of) bingo parlour, including its outside smoking and gambling areas, are available here.

Labels: alcohol, bingo, Britain, smoking ban, taxes

 
A Federalism Quandary
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:28 PM

Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, alcohol was taxed at the federal level, but illegal in some states. This created a bit of friction, as alcohol dealers (operating illegally within a state, if their alcohol was for beverage purposes, not industrial or sacramental or medical use) would sometimes pay their federal taxes. The federal tax rolls, therefore, could be used (and were used) to identify state lawbreakers. Some federal license holders tried to argue that state prosecutions based on federal tax payments violated the self-incrimination clause of the 5th amendment, but that argument generally was not availing. Some states (twenty-eight states, by 1917) even passed laws that made the payment of federal alcohol taxes for beverage alcohol a prima facie state crime. (See Chapter 5 in Richard Hamm's Shaping the Eighteenth Amendment.)

Today we are witnessing a curiously symmetric problem. Medical marijuana is legal in many states, but is illegal as a matter of federal regulation (except for those handful of patients who are provided with federal marijuana). States want to tax the sales, but what marijuana provider wants to provide tax records that could be used for a federal prosecution? I hope that the self-incrimination argument -- which on the merits seems to be airtight from the point of view of this non-lawyer -- proves to be more persuasive this time around.

Thanks to Radley for the pointer.

Labels: alcohol, federalism, marijuana, Prohibition

 
Three Updates
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:53 PM

(1) Following up on this February 22 post.... the Missouri Senate has voted to ban those alcohol vaporizers that have been shown to cause untold -- oh wait, that is right, they haven't been shown to be problematic:

'That's just death waiting to happen if we don't ban these,' said Sen. Luann Ridgeway, R-Smithville, whose bill prohibiting the devices received initial Senate approval by voice vote.

Ridgeway said she hasn't heard of any problems in Missouri as a result of the machines and described her legislation as a preventive measure that would allow law officers to confiscate them.

Senator Ridgeway, I have my suspicions about Meat Lover's Pizza -- would you get to work on that, please? And at this time of year, especially, I think all of us need to know that the law stands ready to protect us from these.

(2) Today's Chicago Tribune's front page includes this story about the swell of states questioning the minimum drinking age of 21 -- no doubt the Trib is channeling Vice Squad's March 1 post. The online version includes this map showing state drinking ages before 1984. [Earlier in the week, the Trib apparently forgot that alcohol and nicotine are drugs: "... methamphetamine, the narcotic scourge that has wounded middle America as no drug ever before...."]

(3) Today's New York Times points to the attractiveness for some intellectuals of drugs like Adderall that might be performance-enhancing (recalling, of course, Vice Squad posts from February 23 and January 19). Time for a Congressional investigation!

Labels: alcohol, inhaler, solipsism, teens

 
Nicotini
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:24 PM

From Alcohol and Drugs History Society comes word of a Chicago Tribune article about a nicotine-infused alcoholic beverage -- the "nicotini" -- that one Chicago bartender has unveiled in response to the smoking ban. Vice Squad had noted a nicotini in Florida as early as November, 2004.

I mention Vice Squad's ahead-of-the-curviness on the nicotini to deflect justified criticism for recent blog neglect -- other duties, alas, have taken precedence. To further maintain the goodwill of the loyal Vice Squad reader, however, let me mention that a little while ago Vice Squad completed a long term project. Around the beginning of 2007 the Blogger software offered the possibility of applying "labels" to individual posts, and Vice Squad has been duly labelling subsequent "contributions". The problem was the stock of some 1100 prior Vice Squad posts that were unlabelled. After fourteen months of painstaking toil, I am happy to report that the backlog has been eliminated, and except for a possible handful of posts that were overlooked, the entire Vice Squad oeuvre has been catalogued. Time and date of the parade will be announced.

[Update: What labels are most popular? (1) alcohol; (2) drugs; (3) prostitution; (4) gambling; (5) Britain; (6) Prohibition; (7) policing; (8) teens; (9) tobacco; and (10) obscenity. What sort of blog is this, anyway?]

Labels: alcohol, Chicago, smoking ban, solipsism

 
Newish Habits in the New York Times
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:54 PM

Today's Sunday Style section contains two front page articles on forming bad relationships. One is about forming a bad relationship with both food and alcohol; the second is about forming a bad relationship with the wired and wireless world.

The bad relationship with food and alcohol is too little of one and too much of the other: an eating disorder co-existing with large alcohol consumption. These two disorders can be complementary: "Many bulimics who drink use alcohol to vomit, experts on eating disorders say, because liquid is easier to purge. They also tend to vomit because they often drink on empty stomachs." And while abstinence can be an effective strategy for overcoming substance abuse, it is of no avail in combating an eating disorder.

A weekly day (more or less) of abstinence is the approach taken by the author of the second article, in dealing with his fixation on connectivity. It took a while, but he came to embrace his "secular Sabbath": "It’s been more than six months, and while I’m hardly a new man — no one has yet called me mellow — this achievement is unlike any other in my life. And nothing bad has happened while I’ve been offline; the e-mail and phone messages, RSS feeds, are all there waiting for me when I return to them."

For addictions as "bad relationships," see Peter McWilliams's Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do.

Labels: addiction, alcohol, internet

 
The National Age Minimum for Alcohol Threatened?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:28 PM

A bill is progressing in the Vermont Senate that would call for an examination of lowering the state's drinking age. Unless the feds alter their own legislation, any state that transgresses federal will by instituting a drinking age below 21 will pay -- to the tune of 10 percent of the state's share of federal highway funds. Nevertheless, there is revolt brewing in various state legislatures.

Vermont is the home of Middlebury College, whose former president has been an advocate for a lower minimum drinking age. He now directs Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit organization devoted to the cause. Here is part of the Waiver proposal from Choose Responsibility:

Choose Responsibility believes federal legislation should not penalize states who choose to participate in a pilot alcohol education program based on a minimum drinking age of 18. Thus, it is our belief that:

• States that present a plan for educating and licensing young adults that can maintain low levels of fatalities while lowering the drinking age ought to be granted a waiver of the 10% reduction penalty for a minimum of five years.
• States should create a mechanism to collect relevant data required to monitor the effects of the change in law.
• State should submit these statistics to Congress (or its designate), along with an analysis of the effects of the waiver from its inception, and may or may not request either an extension of he waiver.
• Individual state proposals must include the guidelines for eligibility and suspension of licenses proposed in the model program.

Vice Squad supports the end of the federal mandate on the minimum drinking age, though any transition period to a lower age could be tricky. Beyond Choose Responsibility's education and licensing suggestions, higher alcohol excise taxes could be used as a supplementary method to help limit teen drinking when a state abolishes its prohibition on 18 to 20-year-old drinking. (Vice Squad supports higher alcohol taxes generally, but another possibility might be to have an age-specific tax, where 18-20 year olds face higher taxes.) Also, the drinking age could be staggered, such that 19 and 20 year olds, for instance, could be licensed to purchase wine and beer, but not spirits.

New Zealand lowered its drinking age from 20 to 18 in 1999. Though there have been reports of increases in some types of alcohol-related harms, efforts to re-raise the age have not garnered sufficient political support.

Labels: alcohol, federalism, New Zealand, teens

 
Britain Still in Northern Europe
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:51 PM

When the UK allowed pubs, at local discretion, to stay open after 11PM, one of the goals was to end the practice of the simultaneous exodus of hordes of young, well, yobs from city centre bars, fighting and generally wronging the ancientry. (The yobs showed enough foresight to realise that they needed to down a few pints quickly if they hoped to get the full effect before the 11PM close.) Sometimes there was a somewhat broader goal mentioned, that of converting the British beer and spirits, binge-drinking culture (one that is not atypical of Northern climes) into the wine sipping, gentler drinking ways of Southern Europe. That broader goal, well, still needs some work. Nevertheless, the fears that the loss of mandatory closing hours would lead to a significant increase in alcohol-related problems have not come to fruition, either:

What is striking about the change is what a small effect it has had. In a way, this is not surprising, because the number of applications for extended hours has been smaller than expected. The main effect has been to move some of the alcohol-related trouble from the "unhappy hour" after 11pm to the early hours of the morning. This is precisely what some police chiefs wanted when they supported the legislation, as the concentration of chaos in a synchronised moment of fighting and puking presented them with a logistical challenge. But it is hardly a great step forward in the social health of the nation that some of our misery is a little more thinly spread.

Just last week the British Medical Association issued a report blaming longer opening hours for increased alcohol-related problems; the timing was somewhat unfortunate, as the Association is currently pursuing an application to extend the hours during which it can serve alcohol at its headquarters.

Labels: alcohol, Britain, closing hours

 
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

 
The End of an Era
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:21 AM

OK, maybe not an era. More like a streak. Every day in 2008, Vice Squad had produced one (and precisely one) post for you, faithful reader. Until Monday, February 18, 2008. On that day, well, indolence reigned supreme. But...but..."this inconstancy is such/As you too shall adore". Maybe. Vice Squad was delayed, having met a visitor to Chicago who is here precisely to clarify the issues surrounding the taxation of alcohol and tobacco (here's a 26-page pdf). I wonder what he thinks about taxing cocaine? Not sure yet, but after our visitor presents his paper on Wednesday, perhaps I will have learned enough to say something.

Those who are concerned that taxing illicit drugs might somehow make them more legitimate might have a point, incidentally.

Labels: alcohol, solipsism, taxes, tobacco

 
Ignition Interlocks
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:28 PM

A new study analyzing New Mexico's experience with requiring first-time DUI offenders to have an ignition interlock device installed in their cars has been in the news the past couple of days. (Interlocks prevent the car from starting unless an alcohol breath test is passed.) The study shows, basically, that this interlock requirement, when it actually results in the devices being installed, is pretty effective at reducing the probability that a driver will be caught driving drunk again. The previous research base suggested that interlock mandates were effective for drivers who had multiple DUI convictions, but results were ambiguous concerning first-time DUI offenders.

Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman notes how well-targeted the interlock mandate is:

It [the interlock mandate] also has benefits for the culprits. In most states, the standard method for stopping drunken drivers is to revoke their licenses so they aren't allowed to drive at all. Under this policy [interlocks], they may drive all they want as long as they're stone cold sober. It incapacitates the incorrigible while sparing the repentant. A canceled license, which lets the offender police his own conduct, does the opposite.

Will this new evidence be enough to convince one Arizona state representative to change his mind about interlock mandates for first-time DUI offenders...yet again?

Labels: alcohol, driving, interlocks

 
One Sane Move in Iran
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:53 PM

The Iranian man who was reported to be sentenced to death for drinking alcohol -- well, he was a repeat offender, and the law calls for execution upon a third drinking offense -- has been released, and this time, he didn't even receive the 80 lashes. This happy turn of events came about because of a clever, Matlock-worthy legal tactic: the scoundrel refused to come clean!

"Since the accused did not confess to drinking alcohol in front of the judge, he was acquitted and released," Judge Jalil Jalili was quoted as saying.

The same judge was quoted on Wednesday in Etemad newspaper as saying the young man, named only as Mohsen, had been sentenced to death.

"Police in a park suspected that Mohsen had drunk alcohol. They arrested him and took him to be breathalysed. The results proved he had consumed alcohol but afterwards the accused denied having done so," said the judge.

In civilized countries, a failure to confess to a victimless crime has been known to increase the sentence.

Labels: alcohol, sentencing

 
Humanitarian Anti-Vice Wars
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:33 PM

The punishment of drug users (as opposed to sellers) is supposed to help the users themselves: the knowledge that they might be punished provides some deterrence against use, and since the drugs (goes the claim) will themselves harm the users, total harm can go down if you threaten mild punishments for drug users. The War on Drugs, you see, is a humanitarian war. But once the punishments do more harm than the drugs -- as Jimmy Carter famously noted about US marijuana laws -- then you might want to rethink your strategy. Nevertheless, lots of places don't let humanitarian considerations get in the way of a full bore war on drugs.

Iran has announced its plans to execute a 22-year-old man for getting caught drinking alcohol on a fourth occasion.

Hegel believed that people could be coerced into taking actions that best served their own interests. Bertrand Russell, in discussing Hegel's view, quotes Hereclitus: ‘Every beast is driven to the pasture with blows.’ Russell continues in sarcastic vein: “Let us, in any case, make sure of the blows; whether they lead to a pasture is a matter of minor importance…"

Labels: alcohol, sentencing

 
On the Wine Market
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:51 PM

In the Milken Institute Review for the Fourth Quarter of 2007 there is an article by Philip Martin concerning the market for wine. The article, which I believe is available to websurfers from this page after a free registration, contains lots of interesting vinous info. Here's a sample:

"France, Italy and Spain are home to just 2.5 percent of the world’s population, yet the French, Italians and Spaniards consume 43 percent of the world’s wine output – an average of 22 gallons per adult per year."

"Europe produces about 70 percent of the world’s annual output of 6.5 billion gallons. France accounts for 20 percent of global wine production, while Italy manages 19 percent and Spain about 13 percent."

"...California still dominates the [US] domestic industry, producing about 90 percent of American wine."

"Americans drink relatively little wine, an average of 2.4 gallons a year, which is barely more than a tenth of what adults in France and Italy consume.... The 35 million American adults who drink wine regularly imbibe over 90 percent of the wine consumed in the country – an average of 19 gallons, or 95 bottles, a year."

There's lots more to delight oenophiles in the article. The Milken Institute Review is becoming a bit vice-addled, I understand.

Labels: alcohol

 
Alcohol in Russia
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:28 PM

Deaths from acute alcohol poisoning in Russia have been described as "so high that they do not fit into the range of international experience." The good news is, however, that such deaths have fallen by more than half in the last two years (or at least the reported statistics have fallen by more than half), from 40,000 deaths in 2005 to 19,000 deaths in 2007. The Moscow Times article suggests that the reduced deaths are due to a tax increase -- no, not a tax increase on potable alcohol, but a tax increase on industrial alcohol, which has caused Russians to substitute to less poisonous varieties. (For some flavour of Russian proclivities to drink beverage "surrogates," see this Vice Squad post from May 2007.) While acute alcohol poisoning deaths have been falling, however, alcohol-associated domestic violence incidents (reported, again) have been rising substantially.

Labels: alcohol, Russia

 
Military Tradition Imperiled
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:20 PM

The Philippine Air Force has a new commanding general -- and he has instituted an anti-vice campaign aimed at his troops. In particular, alcohol, gambling, and mistresses have been targets of his disapproval. Commanders have been ordered to offer daily hectorings to focus the mind of the soldiers upon the evils of these vices. The general intends to lead by example, and has pointed out that he does not smoke. And that is not all for this paragon of military discipline: 'I will not play golf, except for ceremonial tee-offs or to entertain guests.' A quick internet check suggests that the Philippines does not employ a draft (though it has legal provision to conscript), so the general might not want to come down too hard upon the volunteer soldiers.

What was it that Winston Churchill reputedly said about British naval traditions?

Labels: alcohol