Building Support for Alcohol Prohibition

A man who owns two adjoining restaurants in East Lansing, Michigan, has been working on acquiring a license to sell alcohol. He and his lawyer, according to this State News article, repeatedly assured the city council that the establishments would not become bars, but would continue to focus on fine dining. Less than a month ago, the liquor license was granted. Since then, Happy Hour Drink Specials have been advertised on a banner in the window in one of the restaurants: there's a picture accompanying the linked article (and the prices are quite reasonable, I might add.) An ad taken out in the local newspaper by one of the restaurants trumpeted tequila shots and the tag-line, "Guess Who Got Their Liquor License?!" Now some city council members are having second thoughts.

Vice Squad has long looked at the tension caused by advertising legal vice, and how unrestrained advertising generates support for vice prohibition. The failure of the liquor industry to render itself palatable to non-customers paved the way for national alcohol Prohibition in the US. This restaurant owner looks to be following on that same path on a smaller scale.
- posted by Jim @ 12:02 PM

 
Personal Alcohol Licenses and a New Way to Measure Alcohol Consumption

When a person misbehaves under the influence of alcohol, I think it is a reasonable policy to revoke, for some period of time, that person's drinking privilege. Some people already are enjoined from using alcohol as a condition of probation or pre-trial release; the standard way of enforcing the no alcohol condition is to submit the targeted individual to random checks, or to require him or her to be at home at certain times (three times per day, typically) to take breathalyzer exams. Recently, Mark Kleiman suggested that we could broaden the alcohol licensing system, while using sellers as the first line of enforcement: just as sellers currently must check to see that an alcohol purchaser meets minimum age requirements, they could also check for a valid "drinker's license." Mark suggested that sellers form the front lines for enforcement because it would be too difficult for the state to enforce a general drinking license requirement.

But technology might be progressing to the point where it is possible to reliably track the drinking behavior of large numbers of people at relatively low cost. Alcohol Monitoring Systems, Inc., manufactures an 8-ounce ankle bracelet that measures alcohol concentration through ethanol that passes through the skin. The bracelet measures and records alcohol consumption on an hourly basis, and once the bracelet is fitted, the tests themselves do not require any active participation on the part of the wearer. The bracelets are designed to detect and record attempts at tampering, too.

The bracelet is already in use in some court systems. While it's a better deal than jail, the bracelet is far from free: according to the linked article, in Seneca County, Ohio, "The device would cost offenders a $100 refundable deposit, a $75 installation fee and $12 a day." In-home breathalyzers are slightly less expensive, though they do no offer the same disincentive to drink, as those tests are not conducted hourly.

In Professor Kleiman's post, he lists five potential downsides to alcohol licensing. The bracelet system could be employed on a fairly large scale, however, effectively providing the same benefits of more general licensing while skirting four of the five identified problems. The one problem that the system doesn't skirt is that alcohol sellers would lose some of their best customers, but that is a problem that mankind can bear.
- posted by Jim @ 10:10 AM

 
Foreign Vice Developments: Moscow (gambling), India (alcohol), Malawi (prostitution)

Three unrelated but somewhat exotic stories, at least given their locales....

(1) "Moscow has been transformed over the last two years as gambling businesses have flooded the city's streets, shops and metros, enticing passersby with chances to win or lose their money....

There are now 53 casinos in Moscow, 35,000 slot machines and 2,000 igroviye zaly, or slot machine arcades in the city..." London, similar in population to Moscow (13,945,000 in the London metropolitan area, 11.2 million in Moscow), has 29 casinos, according to the linked Moscow Times article. Moscow also now sports its first Gamblers Anonymous group.

(2) The Indian state of Gujarat has prohibited alcohol since 1960. The son of one of the state ministers has had more than 750 crates of alcohol confiscated from his house, which neighbors on his father's home. The father's portfolio in the cabinet is not one you would find everywhere: he is Minister for Religious Places and Cow Protection.

(3) The lame-duck president of Malawi has been issuing a spate of decrees as elections approach. Following a long tradition of scapegoating women for sexually transmitted diseases, he recently ordered that women out at night be arrested, as a precaution against the spread of AIDS. Four law students challenged the decree, and the High Court granted an injunction that has caused the implementation of the decree to be postponed.
- posted by Jim @ 2:41 PM

 
A Guy Walks Into a Police Station...

And tells the cops that a woman just stole his crack cocaine. Apparently the two had been driving around and decided to buy some crack. They bought two rocks, one for the guy, and one for the woman. The woman was only supposed to get hers in exchange for sexual favors. Well, the woman smoked both rocks and took off without holding up her end of the deal.

My two favorite things about this story from central Texas are, one, the guy did not get arrested. He decided that he could work out the dispute with the woman on his own, and secondly, one of the police officers involved reported that "I told him that if he filed charges against the woman and we found her, it was very likely that they were both going to jail. He just couldn't understand that at all."
- posted by Nikkie @ 10:23 AM

 
Tobacco Lawsuit Update #116

The loyal Vice Squad reader keeps imploring, please, please, can we hear more about the thousands of lawsuits involving tobacco companies? And as we aim to please....

The European Union has taken Philip Morris International to court, on the grounds that their distribution practices were undertaken in the knowledge that they were aiding the smuggling of untaxed cigarettes. (A similar "distribution knowingly aimed at fueling the black market" argument has been employed, as far as I know unsuccessfully to date, against the gun industry in the US; I also half-recall that Canada had a similar lawsuit against Big Tobacco but it went nowhere.) Now PMI and the EU are looking to settle. The terms of the putative settlement have PMI paying some 1 billion euros over ten years, with the funds being used to help police the black market.

Pennsylvania has settled one of the cases that it has been bringing against small tobacco manufacturers who were not abiding by the escrow rules adopted in the wake of the 1998 Multistate Tobacco Settlement. The company will pony up. Some previous Vice Squad posts on related developments are here (March 27); here (March 18); and here (involving Pennsylvania, too, on March 2).

The Massachusetts Supreme Court will hear a case (link to article in the Providence Journal; registration required) involving Philip Morris, the state having accused it of deceiving consumers into thinking that low tar and nicotine cigarettes are safer. A similar case is currently at the Illinois Supreme Court; Vice Squad noted it earlier (most recently, on March 18). The current issue to be decided in Massachusetts, however, only concerns whether the case can be brought as a class action.
- posted by Jim @ 6:14 PM

 
(Warning: Lazy Blogger Post) Around the Blogosphere

(1) Mark Kleiman has prepared a study (24-page pdf here) on the links between illicit drugs and terrorism. He talks about it here, and includes a topic not in the report, the question of whether the terror links might suggest legalizing cocaine and regulating it a' la alcohol. Mark offers a tentative "no" to that question, but Drug WarRant begs to differ, while suggesting that a legal regime for cocaine more strict than that generally applied to alcohol in the US might be a possibility, too.

(2) Last One Speaks provides the latest on the DEA's war on pain treatment: a mandatory 25-year prison sentence facing a wheelchair-bound Florida man self-medicating with painkillers acquired through forged prescriptions. Another level of cascade: once you declare a substance to be evil when not used in the precise, officially approved manner, you become willing to put multiple sclerosis sufferers, 45-year old fathers of three, in prison for a loooong time if they ignore your strictures. And to think, there are Americans alive today who were also alive when there was no prescription system at all, not even for narcotics. What progress we have made in the span of one lifetime! (Mark Kleiman also notes the Florida story. Most recent related Vice Squad post is here. Home page of the Pain Relief Network here. I can't seem to find out what has happened to the March on Washington on behalf of pain treatment that had been planned for next week.)

(3) Reason online offers a fine article on the current federal crackdown on obscenity, with a good deal of attention paid to the prosecution of Extreme Associates. [Most recent related Vice Squad post here. Update: BuzzMachine and Mark Kleiman, and Volokh have more.]
- posted by Jim @ 2:55 PM

 
Missing Toaster Ruins Lives

O.k., it's not really clear that a toaster was to blame in the arrest of two people in Virginia on charges of marijuana possession with intent to distribute, however, it was a small appliance of some sort. Apparently, a woman called police to report a small kitchen appliance missing yesterday. When deputies arrived, they detected the smell of marijuana coming from the basement. They went downstairs to investigate, and found two men, some pot, paraphernalia, cash, and a gun. Both men were charged in connection with the find.

It's not clear if the men in the basement are related to the woman who reported the missing kitchen appliance, nor why she called the police when the men were downstairs smoking. The kitchen appliance has not yet been found.
- posted by Nikkie @ 1:04 PM

 
Supremes to Take Drug Dog Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear an Illinois case involving the use of drug sniffing dogs in traffic stops, reports the Chicago Sun Times today.

The defendant in the case was pulled over for a routine traffic stop, and the cops immediately brought over a drug dog, which "alerted" on the car. The cops found over 200 pounds of marijuana, and the defendant was arrested for trafficking. The defendant's attorney noted that,"the dogs always "alert" but most of the time no drugs are found." He continued, "In 2000, the [Illinois State Police] did 3,766 searches and had only 445 finds."

Although the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that police can use drug sniffing dogs without violating an individual's Fourth Amendment rights, those have been cases where the police had probable cause to believe the suspect was carrying drugs. In this case, the dogs were brought in on merely a routine traffic stop.

Keeping true to lawmakers' non-partisanly idiotic views on drug policy in this country, State Attorney General and Democrat, Lisa Madigan, sees no problem whatsoever with these types of searches. If the case is overturned by the Supreme Court, every time someone is pulled over for any type of moving violation, they could be subjected to the humiliation and delay of standing by the road while a menacing German Shepard tears their car apart. Yeah, there's nothing unreasonable about that.

[Update: Vice Squad looked at this dog-sniffing case when it was decided by the Illinois Supreme Court in November.]
- posted by Nikkie @ 9:23 AM

 
Online Gambling Ads

Google and Yahoo announced last week that they will soon stop displaying advertisements for online gambling. The Internet gambling community is concerned that the decisions were made under pressure from the US Department of Justice. The ad bans being put in place by the mega-search engines come on the heels of a recent WTO preliminary ruling that would make it more difficult for US states or the federal government to criminalize online gambling (earlier Vice Squad post, March 28.) The linked article also contains some information about the popularity of Internet gambling:

"Market research firm Christianson Capital Advisors estimated that online wagering amounted to $5.7 billion in 2003, an increase of 42 percent over 2002, with half of those wagers coming from the United States. According to comscore Networks, nearly 25 million unique users logged onto gambling Web sites in the United States in February."
- posted by Jim @ 9:22 AM

 
Fighting for the Right to Grow Poppies

Reuters reports today that Afghan poppy farmers will resist government efforts to destroy their poppy crops in the next several days. The poppy harvest is expected to be collected in less than a week, but the British, who are primarily responsible for drug policy in Afghanistan, will begin eradication efforts in a few days.

The farmers have protested the impending action by taking to the streets and lodging complaints with their local government officials. One farmer was quoted as saying "They will either destroy our harvests or kill us. We will not let them do this even if they send planes and tanks."

Farmers have vowed to quit growing poppies, which in turn are used to produce opium and heroin, if the government rebuilds the infrastructure needed for them to grow legitimate crops profitably. So far, the government has been unable to meet this demand.

This is a country that just asked for over $27 billion in foreign aid. Traditional, U.S.-style policies with respect to illegal drugs, foolish in this country, simply do not apply to Afghanistan. It's not like the West is going to quit using heroin if these farmers' crops are destroyed. Legalize the production and export of poppies, tax the crops, and once the country is on its feet, it can begin to subsidize production of other crops and slowly phase out poppy production.
- posted by Nikkie @ 5:44 PM

 
Unlikely Vice Providers

Question: What population sub-group grows the majority of the tobacco cultivated in Maryland?

Answer: Same old troublemakers.
- posted by Jim @ 4:51 PM

 
Snus Bans in the European Union

No, that is not a typo in the headline: "snus" is a form of smokeless tobacco (snuff), popular in Sweden and made famous in the rest of the world by this previous Vice Squad post. Snus is banned in EU countries other than Sweden, but that ban is being challenged by Swedish Match, a leading snus producer, in two cases before the European Court of Justice. Given recent efforts to smooth the intra-EU flow of alcohol intended for personal consumption, Swedish Match might have a strong case come the June ECJ hearings. Among their arguments, Swedish Match points to the potential health benefits that would accrue from a substitution of snus for cigarettes by Europe's current smokers.
- posted by Jim @ 4:45 PM

 
Aussie Alcohol Developments

Just wanted to pass along three quick alcohol-related stories from Australia....

(1) Inhaling alcohol. Just in case consuming alcohol in the normal manner is not dangerous enough for you, now there's the possibility of inhaling it. (Here's another short report on the inhalation device from some months ago, out of Bristol, UK.)

(2) Lockhart River, an aboriginal area of Australia, enacted strict alcohol controls six months ago. It looks as if alcohol-related harms have declined significantly under the beefed-up restrictions. Last month, the new controls led to an unlikely political scandal ("Winegate") when a government plane with a bottle of red wine on board landed at the community airport -- under the restrictions, alcohol is not allowed at the airport.

(3) Vice Cream. You can now procure non-alcoholic but vodka-flavoured ice cream in Australia. I would like to claim credit for the name "Vice Cream," but actually, it is the manufacturer's appellation for a range of similar products.
- posted by Jim @ 11:39 PM

 
More Sensible Anti-Drug Arrests

As Vice Squad has noted before, once you declare a substance to be evil, there are essentially no limits to what steps you should take to suppress the offending material. Arrest folks who happen to possess the substance. Burst into people's homes to search for the substance. Mandate tests to generate evidence that people have used the substance, and arrest people who sell goods that can be used to confound the results of those tests. And today, Last One Speaks brings word of the latest clever law enforcement ploy, this one aimed at goods that are used in combination with an evil substance. Of course, goods whose primary use is to consume an evil substance have long been suppressed, but law enforcement is now expanding the notion of dual-use technology. The target: fake roses in glass pipes and scrubbing pads.

I wonder how the clerks arrested for selling the roses feel about the seeming immunity of Urban Outfitters? Co-blogger Nikkie uncovered their paraphernalia sales back in October, though since then, the complementary product has had its price reduced -- perhaps in response to Nikkie's complaint at the end of the October post?
- posted by Jim @ 5:48 PM

 
George Carlin on Obscenity

The comedian George Carlin has a place in the history of regulation of obscenity thanks to his monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." A daytime radio broadcast of this monologue led to a US Supreme Court case, FCC v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), the decision in which cleared the way for FCC regulation of indecent though not necessarily obscene material in broadcasting -- a rather timely topic, of course. Carlin was interviewed in Salon recently; here's a brief excerpt:

"I have never seen any sort of study or even an informal body of opinion that thinks these words alone are somehow morally corrupting, that the words do any damage. What they do in many cases is they have a potential of embarrassing the parents because they know they don't want their kids to say them in front of the neighbors. I don't know that there's ever been any evidence shown that that father in the car who reported the "Seven Dirty Words" -- by the way, that name was what the L.A. Times called it, I never used the word "dirty," I called it "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" and I didn't like them called dirty because that was my argument: that they weren't. But anyway, they are now. So that father and that son sat there. I believe he belonged to something called Morals in Media. They didn't turn that off. They weren't appalled. They weren't shocked into turning the radio off or changing the station. He let the child listen, and he listened, and my assumption is that neither of the two were morally corrupted or injured in any way by this experience. They were actually exposed to the words and what damage did they do?"
- posted by Jim @ 8:48 PM

 
Intra-EU Alcohol Trade Developments

At the beginning of March, Finland markedly reduced its taxes on alcohol, in recognition of Estonia's coming accession to the European Union and the EU's liberal policies regarding internal trade for personal consumption: without a tax decrease, Finland expected a surge in what is already a sizeable trade, that of alcohol imports by Finns traveling to Estonia. (Vice Squad looked at the Finnish story on February 29, March 4, and March 13.) One of the sectors adversely affected by the tax cut has been the Party Boats that roam the Baltic between Helsinki and Tallinn. These boats are allowed to sell tax-free liquor, and they were the source of many of the alcohol imports that Finns brought back from Estonia. The boats are facing a triple whammy, in that they now must compete with the lower prices in Finland, fewer Finns, presumably, will be interested in making the trip to Tallinn in the first place, and once Estonia is in the EU, they will not be allowed a tax-free shop. According to this article in the Moscow Times, "All major firms sailing the Baltic Sea have cut their liquor prices from 25 percent to 45 percent in the wake of the new tax rate, looking to keep their stretch of sea one of the busiest in the world. Over 15.7 million passengers sailed to and from Finland in 2002."

Meanwhile, the European Commission is pressuring for a more liberal interpretation of "personal use," in a way that would probably encourage increased alcohol imports from France and Belgium to the UK. From this article in The Scotsman:

"According to EU guidelines, anything up to 800 cigarettes, 400 cigarillos, 90 litres of wine (including a maximum of 60 litres of sparkling wine) and 110 litres of beer is deemed for personal use, although national authorities should consider 'individual circumstances' when carrying out checks." 110 litres! The Commission suggests abolishing the guidelines for alcohol in their entirety, but proposes maintaining the tobacco indicators for health reasons.
- posted by Jim @ 8:18 PM

 
Kansas Comstockery

Dickinson County, Kansas, is so rich that it is happy to spend its resources on sex novelties and special prosecutors: "On Thursday, a grand jury in Dickinson County District Court indicted the Lion’s Den Adult Superstore for engaging in promoting obscenity for selling sex toys from its store northwest of the city along Interstate Highway 70."

John Stuart Mill was afraid that democracy would be no cure for intolerance, and Dickinson County bears out his fears:

"The grand jury was impaneled in November after an opposition group, Citizens for Strengthening Community Virtues, collected voter signatures to force a summons. Jurors reviewed items that were purchased in an investigation by the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office spent $1,332.71 from the county’s diversion fund to purchase items from the Lion’s Den, after a complaint about the store was received." The move was applauded by an anti-obscenity crusader who just happens to be running for office. The would-be office holder knows not only what is right for himself, but what is right for all the good people of Dickinson County, and indeed, the Midwest, according to the linked article: "'I know what this community is about, what the Midwest is about — if they had their druthers, they wish (adult stores) weren’t there. But now they’re beginning to understand they can shape the destiny of their community.'" Let me see if I understand this: he knows his virtuous community well, and yet, he seems very concerned about "Community Virtues!" Funny how other people's virtues are such a popular target for crusaders.

Apparently our generous office-seeker and his supporters moved to state coercion after private intimidation proved insufficient: "He also helped lead Operation Daniel, a 100-day protest in which picketers stood outside the Lion’s Den and recorded and reported license tag numbers of store patrons." Reported? To whom, I must wonder, though I doubt that I would be enthused by the answer. Oh yeah, our fearsome crusader also accompanied sheriff's officers to the store to identify potentially obscene objects. Hey, if community standards are the issue, shouldn't everyone in the community know what is obscene? Why would the officers need help? Maybe they are from some neighboring, licentious community -- er, not in the Midwest, of course.

More people lived in Dickinson County in 1900 than in 2000 -- that "diversion fund" has been doing its job! Of the nearly 20,000 current residents, no doubt some live in despair (and with crusaders such as this, who can blame them?), but at least a fraction live in Hope....
- posted by Jim @ 7:33 PM

 
Regulating Prostitution in Liverpool

Visitors from the Netherlands and from Doncaster, England, came to Liverpool this week to discuss prostitution policy. The Dutch police shared their experiences with city districts where commercial sex is tolerated, while the British visitors were "from Doncaster's Streetreach initiative which helps sex workers who want to get out of prostitution."

Recently, Scotland has been looking into (and rejecting) prostitution tolerance zones.
- posted by Jim @ 7:03 PM

 
Last Call to Be Postponed in Arizona?

Alcohol cannot legally be served in bars or restaurants in Arizona after 1AM. The state senate, however, has "tentatively approved" a bill that would institute a 2AM liquor shutoff.

I suppose many libertarians would have a problem with time-of-day restrictions on alcohol sales (or on sales of anything else, for that matter), but like John Stuart Mill, I have no argument against them on principle. Indeed, I probably even support such laws. But one of the arguments put forth in support of Arizona's proposed opening hour extension I have little truck with: "Liquor lobbyists, tourism advocates and lawmakers pushing the plan estimate the move would add $55 million to the economy and generate more than $3 million in sales taxes."

The additional sales tax revenues, in the first instance, are not a net gain to society at all, but a transfer from consumers of alcohol to those who benefit from the projects on which the government spends its resources. But even here, you have to ask what the individuals would otherwise (in the absence of their additional liquor purchases) have done with their money, and the tax revenues that would have been raised by those alternative uses. And basically I have no idea what "adding $55 million to the economy" would mean -- again, especially if you think of what would have happened with those "additional liquor" dollars without the hours extension.

The main potential social benefit of the hours extension goes unnoted in the article, as it typically goes unnoted in public discussions of vice. That benefit is the increased enjoyment (consumer surplus, in the econ lingo) that many people will get from being able to stay in public drinking establishments one hour later. There is reluctance with noting this as a benefit, in part because we are rightly a little more skeptical of using willingness-to-pay (the standard econ measure of benefit) as a metric of gain in the vice arena -- is a heroin addict really better off when he chooses to use heroin? The skepticism extends even to the decisions of non-addicts, as lots of people regret vice-related decisions in ways that they don't ever regret their decisions to consume,say, ketchup. Nonetheless, for many if not most people who take advantage of the extended hours, they will rationally view their new opportunity to drink later as a benefit, and it is this increased satisfaction -- not tax revenues or "adding dollars to the economy" -- that is the main potential gain from the proposed reform.
- posted by Jim @ 12:43 PM

 
Unconventional Electricity Usage, Trash Handling Leads to Search

Drug WarRant has been detailing (here on March 28, and here on March 31) a California case where a search warrant to look for illegal drugs was obtained thanks to high electricity bills and -- wait for it..... -- the fact that the householders did not take their trash out the night before pick-up. Rather, they delayed until the morning of pick-up! Probable cause that they are running a marijuana grow operation? Well, heck, it's airtight, practically beyond a reasonable doubt. A friend of Vice Squad e-mailed about the story, and included the following snippet from the search warrant:

"During the last two weeks, I have conducted surveillance of the residence and
adjacent residences in the neighborhood, to monitor trash dispensing
practices. I noticed that several of the occupants of adjacent homes in the
neighborhood placed their residential trash receptacles on the curb the night
before the regularly scheduled trash pick-up day... This was not the practice
of the occupants of 7021 Ivy Street... I noticed that the trash receptacles
from this address were not placed on the curb for pick-up until Thursday
mornings [trash pick-up day] after 7:00 AM. It has been my experience that
some narcotics offenders know law enforcement practice of investigation and
that retrieving evidence from a narcotics offender's trash receptacle is an
investigative tool that investigators use. Narcotics offenders who discard
evidence into their trash receptacles and then place their receptacles at the
curb for pick-up for an extended period of time, run the risk of being
discovered by law enforcement."

My correspondent's response: "I had no idea that taking the trash out on trash pick-up day was such a suspect activity. Furthermore, I am amazed that police officers have the time to conduct a two week surveillance operation to monitor 'trash dispensing practices.'"

The search warrant also has some wonderful pieces that border on self-parody: "I wish to search...for the following contraband to wit: controlled substances, including but not limited to marijuana, also known as "Weed", "grass", "the Devil's weed" and "Smoke" including loose marijuana, kilos of marijuana, baggies of marijuana, marijuana cigarettes, marijuana seeds, derivatives of marijuana, marijuana plants, articles and effects used in the cultivation of marijuana, paraphernalia used for packaging, sales, and consumption of marijuana; including but not limited to folded papers, paper bindles, clear plastic and cellophane bags and envelopes, scales, odor masking agents; and fingerprints, handwriting, papers, firearms, written articles pertaining to drugs, narcotics and the use of same..."

I am glad they capitalized "Weed".

The search found nothing, of course, though I can't believe the family didn't have some folded papers lying about. And now written articles pertaining to drugs are a problem? Better search here.
- posted by Jim @ 4:16 PM

 
Cheating on Drug Tests

A few days ago this story on methods of cheating on drug tests appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, and yesterday it was reprinted in the Sun-Times edition for people with short attention spans (that's the edition I have), Red Streak. The article claims that America hosts more than 40 million employment-related drug tests per year. (It doesn't say, but surely this must be yet another area in which America leads the world!) Less than 5% of these tests turn out positive. (The article somehow interprets the low percentage of positives as suggestive that most people aren't using drugs or cheating, but, well, that conclusion requires some further assumptions.) Of those tests that do turn out positive, more than 55% are positive for marijuana.

An accompanying article in Red Streak (I couldn't find it online) briefly recounts a story from a man who conducts drug tests on offshore oil platforms. The tester "said entire work crews have quit on the spot -- even in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico -- rather than submit to his test." It is nice to know there is still some backbone in America -- or at least just a bit offshore. How about some of that similar, New England spirit of independence, town workers of Seabrook, New Hampshire?
- posted by Jim @ 9:25 PM

 
More Cruel and Unusual Punishments For Drug Offenders

I have argued again and again that there should be no criminal penalties for mere possession of personal use quantities of drugs, though I don't oppose on principle criminal penalties for trafficking or sale. (In most circumstances I would oppose such penalties on cost-benefit grounds, but I do not generally view them as prima facie unjust.) But even accepting the validity of criminal penalties for certain drug transactions, the penalties cannot be very severe: even a year in prison for one relatively small drug buy or sale is close to unjust from my perspective. Perhaps you are willing to punish drug transactors more severely than I am. How severe are you willing to get? Two recent stories of insanely severe penalties for drug offenders have surfaced. The first is actually an old story, though updated at Drug WarRant: a fellow, a youthful trouble maker, it seems, matured to the point where he was married with a son, and had not been arrested for 14 years. He bought a pound of pot, and received a life sentence -- he has served about 15 years so far. The second comes out of Thailand, though the result is similar: a 19-year old Briton who presumably tried to smuggle 3,400 ecstasy tablets into Thailand last year has been rewarded with a life sentence. And the sentence really is a reward, a bonus for his guilty plea: had he not pleaded guilty, he could have faced execution.

Adam Smith, on a smuggler: "a person, who, though no doubt highly blameable for violating the laws of his country, is frequently incapable of violating those of natural justice, and would have been, in every respect, an excellent citizen, had not the laws of his country made that a crime which nature never meant to be so."

And more Smith: "An injudicious tax [or prohibition!] offers a great temptation to smuggling. But the penalties of smuggling must rise in proportion to the temptation. The law, contrary to all the ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temptation, and then punishes those who yield to it; and it commonly enhances the punishment too in proportion to the very circumstance which ought certainly to alleviate it, the temptation to commit the crime."

We could use a little of that Scottish enlightenment today.
- posted by Jim @ 11:38 PM

 
The Federal Medical Marijuana Law

The United States federal government began enrolling patients in a medical marijuana program in 1975. In 1992, in response to a flood of new applications from AIDS patients, the Bush administration closed the program to all new applicants. The Clinton administration refused to reopen the program in 1999. Therefore, only seven surviving individuals approved prior to 1992 remain enrolled in the program.

One of these individuals is Irvin Rosenfeld. Delta airlines refused to let him on a plane with his medical marijuana in 2001. The government has acknowledged that Rosenfeld should have been allowed to fly with the marijuana. The Suntimes reports today that Rosenfeld has now filed a complaint alleging that the airline discriminated against him by not allowing him to fly. The government says Rosenfeld is "grandstanding."
- posted by Nikkie @ 2:51 PM

 
The Dangers of Underpromoting Alcohol

Walter Olson at Overlawyered brings news of a suit filed against some bars located near the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Under pressure from the university and federal government, the bars voluntarily eliminated drink specials on weekends. (Pressure for bars near college campuses to eliminate happy hours and other alcohol promotions is pretty common.) The bars now face an anti-trust claim (and potentially "treble damages") on behalf of those weekend imbibers who have been paying full price.

This lawsuit hits at a persistent source of conflict in vice regulation, namely, the control of advertising and other promotional activities. In general, I think that desirable regulatory regimes for vices as widespread as alcohol, heroin, tobacco, gambling, and prostitution, involve legality with a good deal of regulation -- including regulation of promotion. One problem (OK, one big problem) is that the controls over promotion in the US might be unconstitutional or, as (allegedly) in this case, violate antitrust laws. Unfettered advertising -- and arguably we are moving in that direction -- will possibly lead to criminalization of some currently legal vices, and serves as a barrier to legalization of our currently illicit vices.

For more on this theme, see this previous Vice Squad post on alcohol, and this one on brothels.
- posted by Jim @ 5:02 PM

 
The Tennessee Lottery

The state of Tennessee instituted a lottery in January of this year. The Tennessee lottery follows the Georgia model, with proceeds going to scholarships for Tennessee high school graduates to attend in-state (public or private) colleges. The Nashville Tennessean has been covering the lottery pretty closely. Sunday's Tennessean brought a debate about a recent legislative initiative, one that would augment the current "Play Responsibly" message on tickets and ads with something more pointed ("WARNING: GAMBLING, INCLUDING PLAYING THE LOTTERY, CAN BE ADDICTIVE") or a toll-free phone number for help with gambling addiction. Here's the view of a prominent opponent to gambling, while here is the take from the state senator who helped spearhead the state referendum on a lottery.
- posted by Jim @ 4:38 PM

 
Playing Catch-Up

During the past week of slow blogging here at Vice Squad, lots of exciting vice-related stories have appeared on blogs to which we link. We can't possibly make good the arrears, but I will mention just a few of the highlights:

(1) Mark Kleiman offers a fairly detailed post about personal alcohol licenses, which would be revoked (for some period of time) if a person is convicted of misbehavior under the influence of alcohol. Mark suggests that to be efficacious, sellers would have to do the enforcing, that is, check all potential buyers for a valid alcohol license. Related systems now in use in the US as conditions for probation or pre-trial release rely on such things as random tests to provide a modicum of enforceability.

Vice Squad has mentioned the possibility of personal licenses for drug use many times in the past, most recently, here. Such licensing, which could be used for heroin and cocaine as well as alcohol, also would create an environment conducive to some private drug policy responses: some employers might be unwilling to hire someone with who has a heroin license, while life, health, or auto insurance rates might vary based on the licenses a person holds. People might even use the license to control their consumption, perhaps by agreeing to be licensed for only limited purchases (that is, below some maximum that would be established by law) of their drug per month.

Mark also links to and comments upon this fine LA Weekly piece on the use of psilocybin (the main active ingredient in magic mushrooms) to reduce death anxiety.

(2) Tyler Cohen at Marginal Revolution brings word of the World Trade Organization decision that the US cannot legally ban Internet gambling by US residents from web-based casinos located abroad. The case pitted the nation of Antigua and Barbuda (population: under 70,000; Internet betting operations: 30) against the most powerful nation on earth, and the underdog has won the first round. Some members of Congress won't take this lying down, however, as this NY Times article (registration required) linked by Tyler makes clear. (Vice Squad occasionally comments upon the regulation of Internet gambling.)

(3) Belle at Belle de Jour offers an FAQ-style post that provides some information you probably didn't know about the call-girl business in Britain; for instance, only about one-quarter of her customers tip. (Keep in mind, as you read the linked post, that commercial sex is not illegal in Britain, though Belle's "manager" is on the wrong side of the law. ) Belle's award-winning blog has led to a book deal for her. Those of us who will never earn a dime can try to take the moral high ground: making money off of a blog? Isn't that a sort of, er, prostitution?
- posted by Jim @ 8:57 PM

 
Irish smoking ban is here

A nationwide ban on smoking in pubs, restaurants and offices has come into force in Ireland. (Vice Squad has plenty of material on smoking bans -- here, for example. I am sure there was something on the upcoming ban in Ireland too, but I couldn’t find it.) The prime motivation has been apparently to reduce the number of deaths from smoking, government expenditures on smoking-related illnesses, and losses to productivity. This type of reasoning is eerily reminiscent of the arguments used by Mr. Gorbachev’s government to justify tough restrictions on drinking in the former USSR in the mid-1980’s. That experiment didn’t work too well. BTW, in my one visit to Ireland (which incidentally happened together with the good host of Vice Squad) I found the Irish to be in many ways similar to the Russians, although it was harder for me to understand their accents. Among other things, in my experience, the Irish drunk a lot and were not particularly respectful of government regulations. I suspect Vice Squad will follow the developments in Ireland in this respect.

Apparently, the Irish experience will be closely followed also by other governments that try to impose healthy lives on their citizens. In particular, Scotland's government appears to be getting frustrated with the failure of the "voluntary bans" to take root in 90% of food-serving establishments. And when governments notice that their recommendations do not work on a voluntary basis, they often tend to blame the "voluntary" part and not the substance of the recommendations.

Interestingly, according to at least one survey, 20% of the Irish said they would visit the pubs more often once the ban is in place. If an increase in pub attendance does occur, I wonder how that would affect the death rate, government expenditures on health, and productivity losses.

- posted by Michael @ 8:56 PM

 
Welcome Back, Mike

Professor Alexeev has returned and provided Vice Squad with an interesting post on various aspects of the war on drugs. Good to have you back, Mike, hard as it must be for you to live in a state with those wacky liberal judges. I want to mention that the three events that Mike discussed -- Russian drug "decriminalization"; Tulia, Texas; and the current NYC corruption case -- have all received at least passing mention in earlier Vice Squad posts, which I have linked to. Last week's Drug War Chronicle also discusses the Russian situation.
- posted by Jim @ 5:41 PM

 
Shoring Up the Tobacco Settlement

As the loyal Vice Squad reader knows, states have been trying to force small tobacco producers who operate in only a few states to charge more for their cigarettes -- otherwise, the states see a decline in their payments from those tobacco companies that reached the 1998 multi-state settlement. (The most recent Vice Squad entry on this issue is in the second half of this post from March 18.) But lately, state legislatures have not been willing to go along with the scheme, it seems. A bill to tack on a 50 cent per pack tax on the cigarettes of small manufacturers failed to make it out of committee in Florida last week. (Florida is one of the four states that is not part of the multi-state agreement, but forged a similar, separate settlement with Big Tobacco.) And in Kentucky, the state House voted 46-45 against a measure aimed at penalizing the non-participating small tobacco manufacturers. Don't expect this issue to go away, however, as the amount of money involved is substantial.

In other tobacco lawsuit news -- this time an old-fashioned lawsuit brought by the wife of a heavy smoker who died from lung cancer -- the Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the trial court verdict in favor of the defendant, R. J. Reynolds. One of the bases for the appeal was that the trial judge did not let into evidence an advertisement by tobacco companies from 1954 that apparently questioned the link between smoking and lung cancer. The presiding justice noted that the deceased smoker was 2 years old when the ad appeared, and so he "could not have read, understood, or relied on this statement in any meaningful way."
- posted by Jim @ 5:25 PM