Cheating on Drug Tests
- posted by Jim @ 9:25 PM

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?

Labels: drugs, testing

 
More Cruel and Unusual Punishments For Drug Offenders
- posted by Jim @ 11:38 PM

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.

Labels: Asia, drugs, sentencing, Smith, Thailand

 
The Federal Medical Marijuana Law
- posted by Nikkie @ 2:51 PM

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 Sun-Times 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."

Labels: marijuana

 
The Dangers of Underpromoting Alcohol
- posted by Jim @ 5:02 PM

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.

Labels: alcohol, marketing

 
The Tennessee Lottery
- posted by Jim @ 4:38 PM

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.

Labels: addiction, gambling, lottery

 
Playing Catch-Up
- posted by Jim @ 8:57 PM

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?

Labels: alcohol, Antigua, Britain, drugs, gambling, internet, Kleiman, licensing, mushrooms, prostitution, WTO

 
Irish Smoking Ban is Here
- posted by Michael @ 8:56 PM

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.

Labels: Britain, EU, smoking ban

 
Welcome Back, Mike
- posted by Jim @ 5:41 PM

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.

Labels: Russia, solipsism

 
Shoring Up the Tobacco Settlement
- posted by Jim @ 5:25 PM

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."

Labels: litigation, marketing, Master Settlement Agreement, tobacco

 
A Journey from Bloomington to Moscow (and beyond)
- posted by Michael @ 8:10 PM

Despite Jim’s announcement that I would regularly participate in Vice Squad, I have been remiss in my contributions. In part, my excuse is that I have recently traveled to Moscow and have not had the time or the facilities to write for Vice Squad. Actually, I traveled all the way to Bishkek, but that could be viewed as a side trip (just a four-hour hop by plane) from Moscow. While I have not been contributing, I have been on a lookout for the relevant anecdotes along the way. Here are a couple of them.

“Liberalization” of the war on drugs, Russian style

The war on drugs is a global phenomenon. And so, apparently, are both the efforts to bring at least some sense into it and the resistance to such efforts. In Russia, the amendments to the Criminal Code aimed at reducing the punishments for drug-related offences were supposed to become law as of March 12, 2004. However, on the same day, another law was enacted, postponing these amendments until May 12. The current Russian law criminalizes not only the dealers, but also the users of drugs, because by law, possession is a crime even for relatively small amounts. (How barbaric! Are there any other more or less democratic countries that do that? Ooops… I guess there are.) The threshold for the criminal amount is currently determined according to a government regulation. The original idea of the amendments was to increase this threshold, so that possession would become a crime only if the amount is ten or more “average doses” of the drug. The Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs (i.e., essentially, the police), and the State Committee for the Control of Drugs were supposed to agree on the definition of these “average doses” by March 1. Interestingly, the latter two agencies apparently pushed for the old small thresholds and won, at least temporarily. There was also an alternative approach, according to which these thresholds were closer to the European standards. But this more “liberal” approach was losing out, and its proponents decided to push through the law that postponed the amendments, hoping that they will be able to improve them later. After the recent changes in the Russian government, the position of the liberals has become much stronger in this respect, because both the new Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Zhukov, and the new Chief of Staff for the government ministries, Dmintry Kozak, seem to be on their side. Of course, we have to wait and see to what extent the attitudes of these players expressed before they had risen to the highest rungs of leadership are going to be preserved in their current positions of power. We should find out around May 12.

To me, one interesting thing in all this is that the Russian police leadership is apparently for the greatest possible legal restrictions on the use of drugs. At first, this might seem surprising. After all, the illegality of drug use promotes both disorganized and organized crime, probably making police work more dangerous. However, one could easily think of the benefits for the police of the legal restrictions on drugs. The more restrictions are imposed on both the dealers and consumers alike, the greater are the opportunities for police corruption. Realizing this, the Russian police leadership is for toughening the anti-drug use restrictions.

This kind of reasoning would not, of course, be applicable to the good ol’ US of A, or would it?

The War on Drugs, New York style

On my way to Moscow, I was flying through New York City, where I picked up a copy of the New York Times (3/11/2004). Naturally, I immediately started looking for evidence of recent victories in the War on Drugs. However, I couldn’t find any mention of drug busts. Has New York already won the War? Unfortunately, it looks more like a defeat than a victory. Apparently, the regular drug busts don’t make the news in New York nowadays. The only drug-related story from New York was about a widening of the police corruption investigation in Brooklyn that now involves 12 current and retired members of the police. The investigation started in late November when one active and one retired detectives were videotaped taking $169,000 from a drug courier. The policemen have been accused of conspiring with the courier to steal the money the latter was dropping off to be laundered. It turned out that the courier was under surveillance by the federal agents. After some digging, the investigation has claimed that the two men have taken approximately $1.5 million in cash and drugs from dealers. Sometimes the accused have been hitting on dealers based on information gathered in the streets. They would detain a dealer or a courier, take their cash or drugs and let them go. In other cases, they simply picked up their targets in the streets. The policemen would then take the drugs confiscated from their victims to one of “their” dealers, who would in turn sell the drugs and give the officers their cut. This story has another vice angle: one of the accused claims that he has gambled away his share of the loot. Since the beginning of the investigation, the two detectives have apparently implicated some of their colleagues.

The surprising thing to me is not that these allegedly corrupt policemen were caught on videotape. What I wonder is how long it will take for the prosecutors to become sufficiently corrupted to start hitting up their targets for a cut.

The War on Drugs, Texas style

But it can’t be all about money, not in the good ol’ idealistic USA. The same issue of the NY Times reports on an outcome of an almost opposite case, where instead of letting off drug dealers or colluding with drug couriers, an undercover narcotics agent apparently used fabricated charges to have 46 innocent people arrested for allegedly being part of a drug ring in Tulia, TX. These 46 people, most of them black, have just obtained a $5 mln. settlement in their civil suit. In addition to the money, a federally financed narcotics task force covering 26 counties is going to be disbanded. The narcotics agent at the center of the case was named Texas Lawman of the Year in 1999 for cracking the Tulia “ring.” He will go on trial on perjury charges in May. He has plead not guilty, claiming at a hearing last year that the drug ring actually existed even though there has been no tangible evidence of any drug transactions and no drugs or large sums of cash were uncovered in the mass arrests in 1999. No weapons (either of mass destruction or of conventional kind) were found either. The judge presiding over the hearing found that the agent had committed “blatant perjury.” For example, one of those arrested in 1999 was able to prove that she did not sell cocaine to the narcotics agent by producing bank records demonstrating that she was 300 miles away at the time. A lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which participated in representing the plaintiffs in the civil case said, “It’s not that [the agent] was simply a rogue officer. The problem is that federally funded narcotics task forces operate nationwide as rogue task forces because they are utterly unaccountable to any oversight mechanism.” Hear, hear. Let me add that making them accountable would solve only part of the problem.

Labels: drugs, policing, Russia

 
Indiana's Liberal Judges Promoting Drug Use By Limiting Police Tactics
- posted by Jim @ 5:29 PM

In 2002, a Honda Prelude speeded through the town of Prospect, Indiana. The car was stopped for speeding, a drug sniffing dog was on the scene, and the Prelude's passenger was found to be in possession of cocaine. Now the passenger will beat the rap, however, as a three-judge appeals court panel will not allow the seized cocaine to be used in the prosecution.

The judges attempted to justify their leniency by seizing upon a technicality. Seems that the driver of the car was an informant for the police -- so much the better, right? He arranged with the cops to speed through Prospect on purpose, so that they could stop his car, and uncover the cocaine that the informant knew his passenger was carrying. OK, so you don't like to encourage speeding, but when you make an omelette, you have to break some eggs, and a little speeding is no big deal. Oh, there is this one further detail: when the driver arranged the sting with the state trooper, seems he mentioned to the officer that he (the driver) had been drinking all day and was on cocaine himself. But the officer did the only reasonable thing and went ahead with the speeding plan. And now the cloud-cuckoo, don't-live-in-the-real-world judges have put the kabosh on the prosecution. Read all about it here.

One more detail that the judges noted as they cast about for any legal thread upon which to squash the case: the driver/informant was on home detention at the time -- a fact known by at least one of the officers involved -- and, technically speaking, should not have been allowed out to take part in the brilliantly conceived sting operation.

Labels: drugs, policing

 
Saloons
- posted by Jim @ 2:07 PM

Alcohol Prohibition in America was largely brought about by the efforts of the Anti-Saloon League (ASL). Founded in Ohio in 1893, the ASL became a national organization in 1895. The League’s construction along a single anti-alcohol dimension resulted in enormous political influence. The ASL endorsed candidates from any party, for local, state, and national elections, provided they were committed to its "dry" agenda. With significant sway over single-issue dry voters, these endorsements reduced the number of major party politicians willing to adopt a "wet" stance. Its influence growing, in 1913 the ASL called for a Constitutional Amendment to institute a federal alcohol ban, and the Amendment became reality in 1919.

Why would a large group of people and resources coalesce around an organization formed in opposition to saloons? Much of the reason is that pre-Prohibition saloons differed significantly from modern bars or bars/restaurants. Saloons were all-purpose alcohol establishments, encompassing both on-site consumption and take-away purchases. What they generally did not encompass was a welcoming environment for "respectable" women. Saloons were viewed, often rightly, as hotbeds of public nuisance; most notably, they were associated with gambling and prostitution, the toleration or encouragement of which were often conscious marketing elements for the saloons. Many saloons were decidedly odious, at least from the point of view of non-patrons.

I just finished reading The Old-Time Saloon, by George Ade (New York: Ray Long and Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1931). The author was a journalist in Chicago in the 1890s, and he wrote his book during Prohibition -- there had been no legal saloons for more than a decade, so he wanted to record what they were in fact like. Ade places the "blame" for Prohibition primarily on the liquor industry itself:

"The trouble with the drink places was that they tried to think up cute ways of making a fool of the law instead of wisely endeavoring to keep up a semblance of decency and placate the non-customers. In communities which attempted to enforce midnight closing they went in for double curtains and heavy blinds, so that when the place seemed dark from the outside it was very much illuminated and going full blast on the inside. Keeping open on Sundays and holidays, selling to minors, harboring outlaw elements, lining up voters who could be bought -- these were some of the major offenses [p. 23]..." Ade says that in the Chicago loop, the day a saloon opened (so the story went), the owner threw the key to the place into the river, because it was never going to be needed again.

Not only does Ade view the extremism of the saloon owners as the cause of their undoing, he correctly foresaw a similar unwillingness to compromise as a threat to the continuation of Prohibition -- in words that should gladden the heart of those of us opposed to today's War on Drugs:

"The ultra-Drys have had their day in court, and now they are in danger of getting on the nerves of those who do not happen to absolutely agree with them. They are so militant in their goodness that they attribute the basest motives to all opponents. They should remember that the American public will not stand for intolerance, in the long run, and that it has a way of jumping from one extreme to another...[pp. 169-70]."

Labels: alcohol, Prohibition

 
The Internet and Alcohol
- posted by Jim @ 12:04 PM

The ambiguous influence of the Internet on vice regulation is highlighted by two recent alcohol-related stories. The first comes from Michigan, where a group is forming to try to counter the potential for kids to circumvent age controls by using the Internet to purchase alcohol. (The linked article does not actually mention any cases where this circumvention has been successfully (or even unsuccessfully) employed, however -- perhaps the chief motivation for the group to act at this time is to influence the ongoing litigation concerning Michigan's controls over out-of-state, mail-order alcohol sales.) The second story comes from Cabrini College in Pennsylvania, where nine students were disciplined for drinking in their dorm rooms. The initial evidence of their drinking consisted of photos placed on the web (at webshots.com) -- and we all know that anything on the web is completely reliable. The students were each fined $50 and placed on housing probation, and one student lost her work-study job! Well, at least that student can take heart in knowing that she didn't have to face a Texas judge.

Labels: alcohol, internet, litigation, teens

 
Texas Drug Leniency
- posted by Jim @ 11:40 AM

The state of Texas is practically begging its residents to take up illicit drugs, given the ridiculously light sentences being dispensed by state court judges. A man was recently convicted of possession of between 4 and 200 grams of a controlled substance. This week, the judge, perhaps being oversensitive to criticism of the frequent use of the death penalty in Texas, decided to let the malefactor live, and furthermore, only sentenced him to 35 years in prison! This felon could be out of jail in 2039, poised to possess again.

A new book, Life on the Outside, by Jennifer Gonnerman, chronicles the life of one woman who spent 16 years in prison for a cocaine sale under New York's insane Rockefeller drug laws. Here's a brief review of the book from the Village Voice, the publication for which the author (Gonnerman) works.

Labels: drugs, sentencing, Texas

 
Pressure on Christiania Builds
- posted by Jim @ 9:28 PM

Back in January Vice Squad reported on the bonfire of hash-selling stalls on Pusher Street in Copenhagen's "Free City" of Christiania -- the hash sellers themselves torched the stalls, to remove one rationale for a police invasion. But hashish sales continued, and last week, the police showed up, en masse, making 53 arrests. Days earlier, the Danish government abrogated the long-standing deal of toleration for the Christiania "squatters," so the drug crackdown could be part of a broader plan to eliminate Christiania. Drug War Chronicle has details.

Oh, and I have returned to Chicago, and, I hope, to more regular blogging. Apologies to the loyal Vice Squad reader for the lapse.

Labels: Christiania, Denmark, drugs

 
Mixed Feelings
- posted by Nikkie @ 11:08 AM

According to today's Chicago Sun-Times, Illinois Governor, Rob Blagojevich, has proposed that a new job training facility be created at the nation's only correctional facility focusing exclusively on drug treatment. The center is located in southern Illinois. The purpose of the facility is to reduce recidivism rates for drug offenders, which I am all for. I also think that treatment is important for those addicts that want it.

However, if we turn more and more to coerced treatment programs instead of jail time, I'm afraid people will fail to fully understand the horrors of our current drug policy. Treatment is often coercive; i.e., one doesn't really need treatment, but would rather do time in a treatment facility than in a maximum security prison, and so accepts treatment as an alternative to jail time. Further, even if someone serves their time for a drug crime in a treatment facility, they'll come out with a criminal record. It's hard to shake that stigma, no matter how much job training you get. Treatment facilities still lock you up, take you away from your family, and marginalize you.

Drug treatment is woefully inadequate in this country, and I believe there should be more treatment options available. That should not cloud the underlying issue though that our drug laws remain barbaric and unjust. Treatment should be there when people want it, or need it. However, forcing someone to undergo treatment for simple possession of an illegal substance is no more humane than locking them up in jail.

Labels: drugs, Illinois, treatment

 
British Cocaine Problem Solved
- posted by Jim @ 11:14 AM

We knew it was only a matter of time before Lastrade and his colleagues at Scotland Yard solved the case of the concealed cocaine; from Crim Law. Turns out the solution is elementary: a neutron scanner! This should confound Moriarty! (Hey, isn't Holmes a cocaine user?)

Labels: Britain, cocaine, policing

 
Slow Blogging
- posted by Jim @ 11:07 AM

Just wanted to mention that blogging at Vice Squad will be a bit slow, at least on my part, for the next few days; I temporarily left Chicago in protest at the latest casino license contretemps. (See that, as soon as Vice Squad hits a milestone, things fall apart.) Drug WarRant continues to offer a steady stream of incisive posting; also, check out newly blogrolled Last One Speaks, another good drug policy blog (and one that I learned about from Drug WarRant).

Labels: Drug WarRant, solipsism

 
World Health Organization Releases Substance Abuse Report
- posted by Jim @ 10:21 AM

The World Health Organization has released Neuroscience of Psychoactive Substance Use and Dependence, which it describes in this press release as "an authoritative report summarizing the latest scientific knowledge on the role of the brain in substance dependence." It looks as if the report fully subscribes to the disease model of addiction. The report also re-emphasizes the well-known point that the addictive substances that cause the most health problems are the licit alcohol and tobacco, and not the currently illicit drugs. Of course, in itself, this observation says little about appropriate policy towards any of the potentially addictive substances.

Labels: addiction, WHO

 
More Violent Opposition to Alcohol in the Middle East
- posted by Jim @ 6:54 PM

Young Bahrainis went on an anti-alcohol rampage Wednesday night, torching cars, attacking the home of an Asian alcohol distiller, and terrorizing the staff and patrons of a restaurant:

"About 40 Bahraini youth armed with sticks and knives entered the La Terrasse restaurant demanding that some 42 customers leave before they attacked staff and began to break and loot the restaurant and parked cars.

'Why do you drink?' they shouted, according to eyewitnesses. Three people were injured in clashes at the restaurant after one of the customers managed to wrest a knife from one of the attackers and stabbed him with it."

"The group later clashed with riot police in Sanabis village on the outskirt of Manama City and police used tear gas to keep the rioters from reaching the main roads and endangering the lives of people and property. The clashes continued well into the early morning hours of yesterday before leading clergymen and municipality officials intervened to end the standoff."

There was a similar anti-alcohol rampage one week earlier in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. Anti-alcohol thuggery in Iraq has been frequent in recent months, as noted in this earlier Vice Squad post.

Labels: alcohol

 
Vice Squad Half-Milestone
- posted by Jim @ 5:10 PM

Today marks seven years since Vice Squad first ambushed an insufficiently vigilant world. Oh, no, I've re-checked, turns out it was only 6 months ago, September 18, 2003, that the first Vice Squad post made its way into cyberia -- just seems like seven years. We have managed to attract some four or five readers, most of them accidentally drawn here while looking for information on a Britpunk band that shares our name. Thanks to those of you who have dropped by, and to those who have sent links, or even linked to us. May these good deeds go unpunished.

The main development in the last sixth months is that we have managed to become a Squad, with Nikkie, Bernard (now being prodded into more posting), and, I am happy to announce, former guest blogger Michael being part of the team. (Michael agreed to remain a contributor last week but minutes after he did so, he went to Kyrgyzstan; alas, this is true, though as economists are fond of saying, correlation does not imply causation.) Thanks to the Squad members for helping out -- and you thought it was a thankless task!

I could now share the great insights that 6 months of blogging have engendered in me, but, well, I have nothing too profound, or nothing you haven't seen already from some of the approximately 718 gadzillion other blogs. There's the obvious point that if you chronically miss deadlines (as I do), you pay a high price by being a blogger. It's like when you lend money to someone and they don't repay you in a timely fashion, you begin to notice (even against your will) all their other purchases, all the uses of their funds that they evidently deem More Important Than Repaying You. I hope my creditors are not looking at this blog as the use of my time that I evidently deem as More Important Than Meeting My Obligation To Them, but, well, it is understandable if they do. (On the other hand, I know that most of them do not look at the blog at all, given the comparative numbers of creditors and readers.)

As for the future of Vice Squad, well, vice seems to be as prevalent as always, so I hope to keep Vice Squad active for the foreseeable future (while cutting down on the usage of "..., well, ..."). I have dreams of redesigns and bells and whistles and..., well,... (darn!) all those good things. But we shall see; suggestions are always welcome.

Labels: solipsism

 
More Tobacco Lawsuits (Yawn)
- posted by Jim @ 4:36 PM

OK, surely that last post wasn't long and rambling enough, so I will mention two more tobacco company lawsuits. The first is a class action suit in the Illinois state courts, where at the trial level last year the judge ordered Philip Morris to pay, uh, $10.1 billion for misleading smokers into thinking that "light" cigarettes were safer. (Here's an earlier Vice Squad post relating to that case.) Similar cases have been filed in other states, but according to yesterday's Chicago Tribune (registration required)...:

"Since the [Illinois trial court] ruling, Philip Morris, the nation's largest tobacco company, has won pretrial judgments in three states, stopping those class-action suits in their tracks. More than a dozen nearly identical cases are pending across the country.

The company's recent victories place even greater significance on the Illinois class-action case, originating in Madison County, which Philip Morris has appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court.

The case, accepted by the high court in September, remains the only light cigarette class action to go to trial, providing a road map to other trial lawyers on how to win such suits.

A reversal would be a setback not only for Illinois plaintiffs but for others in other states."


In a battle of the vilified industries, tobacco won one today against asbestos producers in the Supreme Court of Mississippi:

"[Asbestos producer] Owens Corning was trying to recover billions of dollars paid out in asbestos settlement cases by arguing the tobacco industry shared some of the blame for the health problems.

The justices, in a 5-1 decision, sided with Jefferson County Circuit Judge Lamar Pickard, who dismissed Owens Corning's lawsuit in May 2001.

Asbestos companies have blamed cigarette smoking for thousands of workers' injuries costing them millions of dollars in damages."

Labels: Illinois, litigation, tobacco

 
Tobacco Lawsuits
- posted by Jim @ 7:53 AM

Maybe someone can keep track of what is happening with respect to the multitudinous ongoing tobacco lawsuits, but I can't. Nevertheless, I soldier on. The case that the US government is pursuing against tobacco firms continues apace, now that the judge ruled today against the tobacco companies' request for dismissal. The companies claimed that the lawsuit violates the separation of powers, as it essentially is using the courts to perform a legislative function. The judge disagreed, so the $289 billion racketeering suit also soldiers on. Here's a brief description of the case from this Reuters news story:

"The government has brought claims against the Philip Morris unit of Altria Group Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., the Loews Corp.'s Lorillard Tobacco unit, British American Tobacco Plc, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. and the Vector Group Ltd.'s Liggett Group.

Brought in 1999 by the Clinton administration, the suit seeks damages and tougher rules on marketing, advertising and warning claims on tobacco products."

Last week, the judge in the case ruled that the government could target pre-1970 tobacco company profits, even though the RICO statute that the government is employing did not exist in those years. From the linked LA Times story (registration required): "U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said that "disgorgement of illegal proceeds is not 'punishment,' " allowing the government to seek remedies for the pre-1970 activity as long as it does not add new punishments."

Disgorging profits "punishment"? Well of course not. It's a compliment, really.

Meanwhile, attempts to hold on to their stream of future payments from Big Tobacco are causing states to target "Little Tobacco" firms. It's Florida's turn now. Though Florida was one of four states that was not part of the 1998 master settlement, it negotiated a similar, separate deal, but is worried that its revenues will fall as smokers switch to the cheaper cigarettes manufactured by non-settling firms. From today's Miami Herald:

"Florida's Republican-led, staunchly antitax Legislature is mulling a 50-cent-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes -- but only on some cigarettes.

Smaller manufacturers of dozens of mostly lower-priced cigarettes that have seen their sales mushroom in recent years would be targeted. The nation's biggest tobacco companies -- makers of well-known brands such as Marlboro and Newport -- would be exempt."

I assume that Florida won't actually enact such a discriminatory "tax," but will dress it up, as other states have, as payments into an escrow account reserved for future lawsuit damages. Some of Vice Squad's earlier looks at the Tobacco Settlement shenanigans are here and here.) Incidentally, West Virginia has rejected for now, but might reconsider, a plan to sell its claim to future tobacco settlement payments for current cash; look about halfway down here.

Oh, here's an excerpt from another recent Miami Herald article that neatly lays out the main issue for the settling states:

"In 1998, the major tobacco companies agreed to settle lawsuits from 46 states that alleged Big Tobacco engaged in deceptive marketing practices and should pay for smoking-related illnesses. The companies agreed to pay the states more than $200 billion over 25 years, though the precise amounts vary depending on cigarette sales.

Last year, North Carolina received $164 million, money it uses for health and economic development programs, among other uses. That amount could decline if discount cigarette sales soar, reducing the number of brand-name cigarettes sold.

Concerned about that possibility, the states that signed the settlement passed laws requiring small tobacco companies that weren't part of the lawsuit to pay fees to cover future costs associated with tobacco liability. Last year, North Carolina collected about $20 million from small tobacco companies.

But because of the way the settlement was written, companies that sell cigarettes in only a few states can receive big refunds. In 2003, North Carolina refunded about three-quarters of the money it collected from discount cigarette makers."

Labels: litigation, Master Settlement Agreement, taxes, tobacco

 
Not 'Politics As Usual' in Illinois For Once
- posted by Nikkie @ 6:43 PM

Last night, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama won the Democratic primary, and will compete in November for a US Senate seat. If he wins, he'll be the only African-American in the Senate. This guy is awesome - great ideas, level-headed, rational. And he beat out candidates with big political machines and big money to win last night's race.

What does this have to do with vice you might ask? Well, one of the other candidates, Blair Hull, the former frontrunner, was plagued by a messy divorce in 1998, and admissions that he used cocaine and sought treatment for alcohol in the 80's. The Chicago Sun Times today, in its coverage of last night's election, briefly noted that Obama has also admitted to using cocaine and marijuana as a teenager. I didn't know this about him.

Here's why it matters. Mr. Obama is one of millions of smart, successful individuals with great ideas and the passion to make a difference in this world, who happened to use an illegal substance. He is not one of millions of smart, would-be-successful individuals with great ideas and the passion to make a difference in this world who happened to use an illegal substance and get caught. He got lucky. There are literally millions of people out there who have tried illegal substances, and nothing bad happened to them. There are millions of others who regularly use illegal substances, and nothing bad happens to them either. In fact, they are productive and successful members of society. They are the lucky ones.

It's not simply enough for our leaders to say, "yes, I tried A, B, and C when I was a kid." That statement is usually followed by, "but A, B, and C are terrible, terrible things and you shouldn't do them." Right, if you try them you could end up holding national office. It's time that our leaders recognize the harm that this country's drug laws inflict on so many people, and stop being hypocrites. It's time for them to be honest.

Here's my dream speech for Senator Obama on the issue: "Yes, I tried A, B, and C. Here are the dangers, here's why I wouldn't want my kid doing that on a regular basis. Here are some regulations and constraints we should have regarding these substances, as they are not completely harmless, but my god it is simply unjust to keep locking people away, destroying lives, and decimating our inner cities for something that I, and probably 90% of the people on this stage with me, have also done."

Labels: cocaine, marijuana, Prohibition

 
Selling Magic Mushrooms and Cannabis Seeds Legally, in Bath
- posted by Jim @ 5:17 PM

That's Bath, England, folks, where a shop that sells hallucinogenic mushrooms and cannabis seeds has opened. According to this article from the Bath Chronicle:

"Although it is illegal to buy, grow or sell cannabis, it is not against the law to sell cannabis seeds or the equipment used to grow it.

Magic mushrooms, which can be picked in fields throughout the country, can be sold as long as they are fresh and not dried out. The shop sells five types of magic mushrooms, ranging from Mexican to the strongest Hawaiian - the hallucinogenic effects of which can last for ten hours."

Cannabis itself was downgraded to "Class C" status in January, so in general, small-scale marijuana possession does not merit an arrest in the UK. (Have you noticed the collapse of British civilisation following this radical step?)

My Anglophilia is growing. The article is once again so sensible -- no hysterical reactions to the shop, even from its opponents. Here's the Home Office spokesperson (policing falls under the ambit of the Home Office in Britain): 'It is difficult to make illegal what can be found in nature, and cannabis seeds can be used for other purposes.' Just the sort of response we can expect from the Drug Czar or the DEA.

Labels: Britain, marijuana, mushrooms

 
Illinois Casino License
- posted by Jim @ 4:53 PM

The saga of the state of Illinois' ill-fated tenth casino license continues. On Monday afternoon, the five members of the Illinois Gaming Board announced their 4-1 decision to award the license to Isle of Capri Casinos, Inc., which bid to place the casino in Rosemont, a Chicago suburb next to O'Hare airport. The license is available because the current holder of the license, Emerald Casino, never actually was allowed to open their proposed Rosemont casino, amid allegations of organized crime infiltration. As the in-bankruptcy Emerald still owns the license, the award to Isle of Capri is far from final: not only does the bankruptcy court have to agree to the sale, the transfer could meet a legal challenge from the Attorney General of Illinois. The award of the license to Isle of Capri is particularly controversial because of its Rosemont connection, and because the staff of the Gaming Board had recommended that the license be awarded to a different, non-Rosemont bidder. I find this politically-charged soap opera to be rather tiresome, but readers with stronger stomachs can learn more from two articles (here and here) from today's Chicago Tribune (registration required), as well as this Trib editorial and especially this op-ed column by Carol Marin, entitled "A Scam, a Sham and a State's Shame."

Labels: casino, Chicago, gambling, Illinois

 
The States Don't Care About the Lives of Their Citizens....
- posted by Jim @ 12:15 AM

...at least not like the US of House of Representatives does. It seems that many
individual US states are practically begging their citizens to drive under the influence of illegal drugs, by not having regular testing regimes and per se standards established. Fortunately, the laggard state capitols across our land will be forced to rectify this situation, at least if Nevada representative Jon Porter has his way. From this AP story at Yahoo News: "His bill would make states that don't enact drug-impaired driving laws forfeit 1 percent of their annual federal highway funds to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [internal links deleted]. The amount forfeited would double each year up to 50 percent." The fact that 42 states have not yet felt such a law to be requisite only indicates the pressing need for Rep. Porter's bill. My own additional concern, one unaddressed so far by all 50 of those incompetent state governments, regards the problem of people driving while distracted by classical music playing softly in the background. Hey, watch where you are going, Beethoven-breath. Perhaps a little federal pressure, Representative Porter? [Of course, no one should drive while intoxicated (or otherwise distracted) -- editor.]

Labels: alcohol, driving, federalism

 
Vice Is Elsewhere in Blogistan
- posted by Jim @ 11:43 PM

Will Baude at Crescat Sententia links to an NPR interview with I. Nelson Rose, an expert on gambling law, concerning the legal (er, illegal) status of NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament pools. A column in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune (registration required) segues from NCAA pools to the sad story of one-time NFL quarterback Art Schlichter: "The No. 1 draft choice of the Baltimore Colts in 1982, Schlichter gambled away his $350,000 signing bonus. In 1983 he was suspended for a year by the NFL for gambling. From 1987-94 he was arrested four times on charges of bank fraud, unlawful gambling and writing bad checks." Schlichter currently is in prison.

Also at CS, Amanda Butler looks at US and British developments in obesity policy; Overlawyered summarizes some of the discussion about Congress's effort to ban obesity class-action lawsuits aimed at fast food establishments. (Vice Squad's most recent obesity entry was last week -- oops, perhaps this is the most recent VS obesity entry?)

Crim Law on March 14 presented 4 interesting vice-related tales, including the seizure of 7 tons of cocaine (gee, do you think they got all of it?) and a reprimand of the West from Iran for our lack of rigor in prosecuting the drug war.

If things go well, some more blog-borrowings tomorrow.

Labels: cocaine, gambling, obesity

 
Clergy Arrested for Performing Same Sex Marriages
- posted by Nikkie @ 12:24 PM

Paul Mooney, a comedian and former writer for Richard Pryor said recently that he could tell the government wasn't really serious about opposing gay marriage because they weren't arresting people for engaging in it like they did interracial couples in the 60's. Well, if that's the criteria, I guess we had better sit up and listen - the government is taking gay marriage seriously. The District Attorney for Kingston, New York is now arresting people for performing same-sex marriage ceremonies, according to today's Chicago Sun Times.

Bravo District Attorney Donald Williams! Not only are your streets safer today, but now that those who believe that homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals are under threat of jail time for their beliefs, the institution of heterosexual marriage in Kingston, NY is finally safe.

Labels: marriage, policing, sex

 
Licensing Illegal Prostitutes
- posted by Jim @ 4:01 PM

Operating a retail trade business in India typically requires a license. The mayor of Kolkata, India wants to make sure that prostitutes are complying with this regulation. This despite the fact that prostitution is illegal. The mayor "has said he would grant trade licences to about 16,000 sex workers and their family members living in Sonagachi, one of Asia's biggest brothels in the city's north.

'I don't want to know who is into what trade or whether it's right or wrong. That the government will decide. I only know if you are trading, then you must have a licence,' [the mayor] has argued.

He said he had decided to ask sex workers to get trade licences subject to the fulfilment of some conditions.

Prostitution is considered a crime in India that can fetch an offender up to one year in prison and a fine."

Labels: India, licensing, prostitution

 
Alcohol Policy in England
- posted by Jim @ 3:22 PM

The British government released a report (100 page pdf file here; a short summary from the Guardian here) today concerning alcohol regulation in England -- devolution meaning that Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales are producing their own strategies, though with consultation across the UK. The main issues of concern are binge drinking and chronic heavy drinking, though underage (under 18) drinking is also addressed. Britain's level of alcohol consumption is rather middling for European countries, but it has been rising for the last few decades, and underage drinking is high in Britain relative to Europe.

The report is quite comprehensive, looking at a wide spectrum of alcohol-related behaviors and policies. It is refreshing in its lack of hysteria, its overall good sense -- no proclamations of a great crisis, no demonizing of producers or pub owners, even as it calls for better self-policing within the industry. The report does not look to higher taxes as a method of reducing consumption (despite a recent call (42-page pdf here) for substantial alcohol price increases from the independent Academy of Medical Sciences.) Among the policies that it does call for are more use of individual-specific bans (from certain pubs or even town centres) for those who have behaved badly under the influence in the past, and increased oversight of advertising to ensure that it does not target youths or "glamorise irresponsible behaviour." And OK, there is something akin to a tax, where the industry is expected to provide funds (in an unspecified manner) to help combat alcohol-related harms. All-in-all, a quick reading suggests that this report is well informed and reasonable.

Perhaps not coincidentally, a short item, "Why Alcohol is Addictive," was put out by the BBC today.

Labels: addiction, alcohol, Britain, taxes

 
Just Say No Film Fest
- posted by Nikkie @ 3:41 PM

The Independent Film Channel held a "Just Say No" movie festival this Saturday, March 13th, by showing movies that prominently featured excessive, I mean really excessive, drug use.

Movies (and substances) featured were: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (pretty much every drug known to man), Requiem for a Dream (heroin/speed), and Another Day in Paradise (heroin/alcohol). All pretty good films in my opinion. None of these movies really glamorize drug use. In fact, they do a pretty good job of showing the seedy underbelly of addiction. However, the movie Fear and Loathing, like the book, is conscious of the political and social climate surrounding a time in America's history when recreational drug use was part of a larger battle against the status quo.

One of my favorite lines from "Fear and Loathing" is taken from the book upon which the movie is based. Thompson is talking about the late 60's/early 70's:

"And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave....So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

It's a bummer man. Maybe someday that wave will swell again.

Labels: addiction, alcohol, drugs

 
Witchhunts Back in New England!
- posted by Jim @ 12:41 PM

For some time now, many employees of the town of Seabrook, New Hampshire, have been subject to random breathalyzer and urine tests. Apparently there's been a problem with maniacal, intoxicated behavior by other town employees not subjected to the testing regime, however. So now Seabrook has closed this dangerous loophole, by overwhelmingly voting to require all town employees to undergo alcohol and drug testing:

"Following Tuesday’s vote, all town employees, including those who serve on town boards, will be subject to random drug-and-alcohol testing, according to Town Manager Fred Welch. Union contracts will need to be negotiated to include the requirement or the contract will not be valid, he said on Wednesday."

Where did this outstanding idea originate? Well, it is sort of hard to say, as this Boston Globe article reports. An article in today's New Hampshire Sunday News (registration required) doesn't fully clear things up, either, but it does offer up a gem from a selectman who favors the new rule: "Asked if he thought such testing might violate people’s privacy, [the selectman] said: 'I don’t know that there is such a thing as privacy rights when you work for the people.'" Incidentally, the testing mandate applies to volunteers who serve on various town boards.

Update: I really have to start reading Vice Squad. Seems that Seabrook is the very town that Vice Squad member Nikkie identified as being in the midst of a heroin epidemic.

Labels: alcohol, drugs, heroin, testing

 
Estonia Mulls Making the Purchase of Sex Illegal
- posted by Jim @ 11:59 AM

Friends of Vice Squad are relentless in their lobbying for more stories from the web-editions of Finnish newspapers. So today we pass along word that Estonia, a destination site for sex tourists -- especially from Finland and Sweden -- is considering making the purchase of sex illegal. It appears that Estonia currently operates under rules like those in Britain and Canada, where purchase and sale of sex is not illegal, though related activities such as brothel-keeping or "living off the proceeds" are proscribed.

The suggestion to make the purchase of sex illegal would not criminalize the sale of sex. (See this earlier Vice Squad post on "one-sided enforcement.") This is the symmetric twin of a more common anti-prostitution strategy, where selling sex is illegal but buying sex is either legal or punished comparatively lightly. Indeed, in most vice enforcement, sellers tend to face a stricter regime than do buyers. (During alcohol Prohibition in the US, sales were illegal, but purchases were legal.) For the last few years, however, Sweden has adopted the "sales legal, purchases illegal" approach to prostitution control. (Here's a quite negative view on the Swedish experience; a much more sympathetic take (from 1999) appears here. Finally, here is another view of the Swedish experience by a group that hopes to export the Swedish model to New Zealand.) Finland has considered but rejected the Swedish model in the past. Vice Squad previously has noted the split among feminist groups concerning prostitution policy, especially between groups that favor the Swedish approach and those that support broad decriminalization of prostitution.

Labels: Estonia, Finland, prostitution, Sweden

 
Update on Finnish Alcohol
- posted by Jim @ 3:33 PM

Prices for alcohol in Finland took a tumble on March 1, as the Finnish authorities lowered taxes to forestall personal liquor imports from Estonia. (The two previous Vice Squad posts on this development are here (March 4) and here (February 29).) The initial report was that the lower prices didn't seem to be having much effect, but that has changed. The biggest impact seems to be occurring at retail establishments near the Swedish border. Sweden has maintained its high alcohol taxes, and now Finland has joined Denmark as an alcohol supplier to day-tripping Swedes. (In Finland, incidentally, the state operates the alcohol retail distribution network, with stores names "Alko".) From this article published on Friday in a Finland newspaper:

"Customers from as far as Central Sweden flocked to Tornio to stock up on fairly large quantities of booze. 'Swedish krona now account for 60% of our turnover, whereas normally it is just five percent', says Juha Ohtonen, manager of the Tornio Alko.

The Tornio Alko was almost sold out on the first Friday of March. The small sales outlets in Southern Ostrobothnia also had to struggle to keep enough bottles in stock on the first Saturday of the lower prices.

When some brands did run out in Tornio, many Swedish customers drove on to Keminmaa 20 kilometres away."

Labels: alcohol, Estonia, Finland, free trade, Sweden, taxes

 
Absinthe Ban in Switzerland
- posted by Jim @ 10:52 AM

"Swiss Government Supports End to Absinthe Ban"...

...so reads the headline to the linked Yahoo news story. The ban itself has been around for nearly a century:

"The federal Swiss government said in a report that the 1908 ban no longer was justified, since the quantities of thuyone -- the substance in absinthe considered dangerous -- were now clearly regulated in the drink.

Legalizing it would actually enable authorities to control the production of the alcohol and tax its sales, it said."

Is absinthe, because of thuyone (or thujone), more dangerous than other beverages with similar alcohol content? For modern absinthe (at least not the bootlegged variety), it looks as if the answer is no, but very high levels of thuyone would be a cause for concern. Did pre-ban absinthe contain sufficient thuyone to cause health problems (including mental illness)? Here's the final paragraph of an informative look at thujone by Ian Hutton:

"In conclusion, there is no evidence that absinthe ever contained the high concentrations of thujone that would have led to detrimental effects or that it has hallucinogenic or mind altering properties. The health problems experienced by chronic users were likely to have been caused by adulterants in inferior brands and by the high levels of alcohol present. Claims for beneficial effects must also be treated with some scepticism as again, the detrimental effects of the alcohol would presumably outweigh any benefits. It seems likely that the phenomenal success of absinthe during the 19th century was due to one factor, the French love of aniseed drinks. The modern equivalent of absinthe, pastis, is by far the most popular distilled spirit in France with 125 million litres being consumed annually. Perhaps the reason that so much absinthe was consumed, and absintheurs waxed so lyrically about it was simply because it tasted good."

Absinthe is now legal in most of the European Union, though it remains prohibited in the United States. If you do try absinthe, try not to end up like this perplexed soul; try to be more like the happy folks at the bottom of this page.

Labels: absinthe

 
Recent Drug War Killings
- posted by Jim @ 3:48 PM

This week's Drug War Chronicle provides an update on three drug war deaths of recent months:

"On December 10 [in Columbus, Georgia], Kenneth Walker, a 39-year-old black professional and family man, was riding in an SUV with friends when their vehicle was pulled over by police doing a drug investigation (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/316/columbus.shtml). Walker ended up dead with a bullet wound to the head. No drugs or weapons were found in the vehicle.

Three weeks later, on January 3, 19-year-old Michael Newby, a black resident of Louisville's predominantly black West Side, was killed by a Louisville police officer during an undercover drug buy (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/319/threeshots.shtml). Officer McKenzie Mattingly said he shot Newby in self-defense during a scuffle, but the fact that Newby was shot in the back has raised numerous questions, as well as tempers in the black community -- some of whose members engaged in a mini-riot, breaking the windows of the police chief's office and tangling with riot police, a week after the shooting.

Then, on February 17, Oakland resident Rudolfo Cardenas was and killed by a California narcotics officer attempting to serve a parole violation warrant (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/326/wrongman.shtml). But Cardenas wasn't the man the cops were looking for. The 43-year-old ex-con just happened to pass by the house targeted by police and fled for unknown reasons. Police chased him in vehicles and then on foot. Cardenas died in an alleyway, shot in the back repeatedly. No drugs or weapons were found, although police initially claimed he pointed a digital scale at them."

These shootings are tragedies for the victims, their friends and families, the communities -- and for the police, as well. Back to Clarence Darrow again, on alcohol Prohibition: "No other statute is openly enforced with guns and revolvers. For no other minor offense can officers with impunity shoot down a human being in seeking to make an arrest."

Labels: Darrow, drugs, policing

 
Prostitution in Berkeley
- posted by Jim @ 2:57 PM

At the end of January, Vice Squad member Bernard noted efforts in Berkeley, California, to "decriminalize" prostitution. In reality, Berkeley cannot fully decriminalize, as prostitution violates state law, but a successful "decriminalization" would likely lead to diminished enforcement of anti-prostitution laws. The Oakland Tribune updated the story one week ago: the effort now is for the decriminalization question to appear on the ballot in November.

Prostitution enforcement brings on many of the usual ills of illicit markets, of course. Further, lots of otherwise law-abiding people find themselves publicly embarrassed and in legal trouble when arrested for prostitution-related crimes. The recent haul along these lines includes a New Jersey police chief, a Pennsylvania police officer (who allegedly was far from "otherwise law-abiding," actually), and a 76-year old California judge whose wife passed away in 1999. Some or all of the serious crimes alleged against the Pennsylvania police officer, involving agreements to drop prostitution charges in exchange for sex, also seem to stem from the criminalization of prostitution.

Labels: California, policing, prostitution

 
One Strikeout Victim
- posted by Jim @ 1:55 PM

Crim Law points to this Christian Science Monitor article on the impact of California's Three-Strikes law. Here are the final three paragraphs:

"But to Sue Reams, who 10 years ago voted for the law but now is part of a growing grass-roots movement to amend it, such analysis is simplistic and misses the human element. She's quick to tell her son Shane's story to drive the point home.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, he was a teenager struggling with a drug addiction. To help him, she became a 'tough love' parent. When she realized he'd stolen from her home and her neighbor's, she reported him to the police. As a result, he was convicted of two felonies for burglary. In 1996, two years after the law was passed, he was standing 30 feet away from a friend selling crack. He was arrested and charged with aiding and abetting a $30 sale of cocaine. He and his friend were both convicted. The friend was given a four-year sentence and served two years of it. Shane was given 25 years to life, because it was his third felony.

'I voted for the law. I helped send my son to prison when what he really needed was drug treatment,' says Ms. Reams. 'That's how I feel now, and I intend to get him a second chance.'"

Labels: addiction, drugs, sentencing, treatment

 
Obesity (with update)
- posted by Jim @ 6:09 PM

All sorts of movement on the obesity front recently. A few days ago, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their report showing that physical inactivity and poor diet are on their way to catching tobacco as the leading behavioral causes of death. CDC estimates that in 2000, some 435,000 Americans died from tobacco-related causes, with obesity behind another 400,000 deaths; alcohol claimed 85,000, while illicit drugs were connected to 17,000 deaths. One day after the report was released, the US House of Representatives passed a bill (Los Angeles Times story, registration required) that would forbid class action lawsuits attempting to hold the fast-food industry responsible for obesity in their customers. Some states have already adopted similar legislation, while other states have related bills under consideration. Here's an article about Ohio's measure; Wisconsin, Washington, and Florida also are among those states with pending legislation. Meanwhile, McDonald's has announced that it is phasing out super-size portions (no word on the super-duper-size), while the Swiss are considering a tax on fatty foods.

The standard off-the-shelf economics approach to all this, of course, is to ask, well, what's wrong with obesity? Eating mounds of food and not exercising are consumer choices, and as long as there is no deception taking place, there's not much of a case for government intervention (or for those blame-the-seller lawsuits). But such reasoning only applies if we can trust the "rationality" of decisions to eat and (not) exercise. How could we make an argument that such choices are not rational? One approach might be to note that our tastes for food evolved over eons in which food was harder to procure than it is now -- sugar itself did not become a global commodity until relatively recent times. So our appetites are not well suited to the new situation of food abundance that characterizes today's rich nations. Alternatively, one could make the same sort of “self-control” (dynamic inconsistency) argument that comes up in looking at consumption of addictive products.

A recent article in the Journal of Economic Perspectives (Vol. 17, No. 3, Summer 2003), “Why Have Americans Become More Obese?,” by David M. Cutler, Edward L. Glaeser and Jesse M. Shapiro, attributes American weight gain to improvements in the mass production of food and a resulting increase in caloric consumption (calories expended have not changed much in the last 20 years). These authors argue that for most people, these technological changes have been welfare-improving, even though they have contributed to obesity. Only people with extreme self-control problems, according to the article, would find themselves worse off from the technological improvement in centralized food preparation, and as there is little evidence for such extreme preferences, most Americans have benefited, just as naive economic reasoning would suggest.

Update: Vice Squad has looked at obesity policy in the past; oh, and another look was taken during my guest stint at Crescat Sententia. Overlawyered has a post on the House vote, with reams of useful links. The Adam Smith Institute fills us in on developments in the UK, where food advertising is attracting regulatory attention.

Labels: dynamic inconsistency, obesity

 
Teen Anti-Smoking Campaigns
- posted by Nikkie @ 1:39 PM

The Chicago Sun-Times reports today on a new study about cigarette smoking in PG-13 and PG rated movies. The author of the study would like to see movies that depict smoking slapped with an R-rating. I agree, and movies that show two hours of deplorable, bloody violence, such as a spike getting rammed through the fleshy part of someone's hand should be celebrated as a wholesome family experience. What is wrong with this guy? It is a sad commentary on our society that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) says that movies with frank and honest discussions or depictions of human sexuality are inappropriate, and often must either be edited for American audiences or be faced with the kiss of commercial death: an NC-17 rating, while the bloodiest of films can often get by with a PG-13 seal of approval. Now we want to add cigarette smoking to the list of things we're going to be prudish about in the movies?

Personally, I don't smoke cigarettes but I'm thinking of taking it up to protest against the anti-tobacco ads on t.v. I can't stand campaigns like "The Truth" that try so hard to be cool by "exposing" evil tobacco companies to teens. I think everyone can agree that Big Tobacco is not going to win philanthropist of the year. We all know that smoking is bad for you, and we've known it for a long time. We know Big Tobacco puts stuff in cigarettes to make them addictive. Do we really need to be spending millions of dollars on television ads and whiny propaganda like this bit from Thetruth.com:

"It's tough going out there day after day infecting the populace with the truth about the tobacco industry. Some days it seems like it's all a conspiracy and the whole world's against you."

The money that funds this campaign comes from the settlement Big Tobacco reached with the states. I think we might be able to find a better use for these resources.

South Park had a great episode a while back where the kids were subjected to a school program presented by "Butt Out", a teen anti-smoking singing group. The group sang a ridiculous song about the dangers of smoking, and acted like complete fools. The group told the South Park kids that they shouldn't smoke, and if they didn't, they could grow up to be just like the members of "Butt Out". Cut to the next scene where the kids are frantically smoking cigarettes in an effort to not end up like the Butt Out crew.

I'd like to see some empirical data a few years from now on whether or not these teen anti-smoking campaigns had a positive or negative effect on teen smoking rates.

Labels: Master Settlement Agreement, obscenity, teens, tobacco

 
Perhaps the Final Post on Clarence Darrow and Prohibition
- posted by Jim @ 11:22 AM

OK, even the loyal Vice Squad reader is pretty much Darrowed-out. But the quest for closure necessitates one more post about what Clarence Darrow had to say about Prohibition in his autobiography, The Story of My Life. Forthwith.....

"If the prohibition law had been treated like any other act of Congress or
State legislation it would have died long ago. No other statute is openly
enforced with guns and revolvers. For no other minor offense can officers
with impunity shoot down a human being in seeking to make an arrest."

"The tyrant believes that if the laws do not fit the people then the people
must be bent to fit the laws and forced to obey."

"The Volstead Act in effect brands every one who takes a drink as a criminal,
as a felon. It does this in spite of the fact that the greatest men of the
world have always taken intoxicating drinks."

Plus ca change.... Diehards can find the earlier Darrow posts here, here, here, and at the end of the post here.

Labels: alcohol, Darrow, policing, Prohibition

 
Blogger Contending With Alcoholism
- posted by Jim @ 11:59 PM

Will Baude at Crescat points us to this sad but hopeful tale of a blogosphere denizen who is struggling against his alcoholism. Here is his wife's post, seeking assistance, at the time that he bottomed out.

Update: The link to the blogger's wife's post has been corrected. Also, Will brings our attention to this interesting post from the recovering blogger concerning Rational Recovery, an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous. (Alas, this link had to be corrected, too.)

Labels: alcohol, Crescat, treatment

 
"No Alcohol" as a Condition for Release Pending Trial
- posted by Jim @ 7:39 PM

Yesterday, I mentioned that while a general drug prohibition is an unjust policy, individuals who have engaged in criminal behavior while under the influence of a drug potentially are fit objects for targeted prohibitions on drug consumption -- prohibitions specific to those individuals. So if someone drives a car while under the influence of marijuana, he could lose his marijuana consumption "license" (as well as his driver's license!) And if he accosts someone when he is drunk, he could lose his "license" to drink. Probation conditions frequently include drug-free requirements, backed up with testing.

In Bennington, Vermont, an interesting case has arisen. A fairly prominent citizen has been accused of groping a woman at a bar, while he was under the influence of alcohol. (The actual charge, apparently, is for "lewd and lascivious conduct." The linked article is from a newspaper, the Bennington Banner, that used to be published and owned by the accused man.) The accused has pleaded not guilty to the charge. As a condition of his pre-trial release, the judge forbid the accused from buying, possessing, or drinking any alcoholic beverages. Random checks by law enforcement are permitted to check compliance with the condition.

Conditions for pre-trial release are not meant to be punitive, as the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Rather, they are put in place if they are believed to be necessary to help protect the public from potential misconduct. The defendant's lawyer claimed that it is outrageous to think that the public requires any such protection from further (i.e., allegedly further) drinking and groping by his client.

If the "no alcohol" requirement came after conviction, then Vice Squad would have no problem with it, and might even applaud it. Whether it is reasonable as a condition for pre-trial release is less clear. (The judge also rejected a suggestion by the defendant's lawyer that the defendant be allowed to drink at home, but not in public, and that restriction would be much easier to defend.) The defendant was convicted of driving under the influence in 1996, which strikes me as relevant. At any rate, I am uncertain about how I feel about this -- I would be much happier with the "no public drinking" restriction -- but I guess that I cannot condemn the condition as unreasonable based on the one news story that I have read.

Labels: alcohol, driving, licensing

 
New York City Returning Cars It "Borrowed"
- posted by Jim @ 5:43 PM

Legal niceties can be soooo tiresome. Some smarty-pants judges told New York City that it wasn't respecting the "due process" rights of the owners of cars that were seized from accused (but not convicted) individuals. That was in September, 2002. In January, 2004, another federal know-it-all judge suggested that hearings where those car seizures could be challenged were needed, pronto. Turns out NYC is better at taking cars than holding hearings, so they are now trying to return the cars, some 6,000 of them. If I were an owner, I wouldn't hold out for a car wash, oil change, and full tank of gas.

According to the New York Times article (registration required) sent to Vice Squad by an attentive reader, "The vehicles had been seized from suspects in a wide range of offenses, including drunken driving, patronizing prostitutes, and crimes involving guns or drugs."

The rules governing such seizures in the future, as ordered by one of those activist judges, include a requirement that the suspect receive a "request for hearing" form at the time the vehicle is seized, and that the hearing be held within ten business days of the request. Further, the hearings themselves "should address three issues, [the Judge in the January ruling] wrote: whether probable cause existed for the arrest, whether it is likely that the city would prevail in an action to forfeit the vehicle, and whether it is necessary for the car to remain impounded to ensure its availability as evidence. The judge said the department would have the 'burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence as to all three issues.'" So the rule of law wins one in NYC.

The Times article concludes with updates from the New York counties of Nassau and Suffolk, which figured in a previous Vice Squad post on asset forfeiture:

"The Nassau County Legislature voted unanimously last night for an amendment to allow a seizure only after a conviction. The amendment would also require hearings in which owners can seek to get cars returned, especially if the owner is not the arrested driver, and in hardship cases in which other people need to use the car. Legislators said the changes should satisfy the courts, which found the existing law unconstitutional.

In Suffolk County, Legislator Cameron Alden has proposed a change that would entitle car owners to seek a hearing before an independent hearing officer, instead of the current procedure of applying to a police officer, which a judge has struck down as unfair."

Labels: asset forfeiture, New York

 
The Making of an Epidemic
- posted by Nikkie @ 1:17 PM

Three people were recently arrested in Seabrook, NH for heroin possession and distribution. Sergeant Ellen Arciri of the Seabrook Police Department was quoted as saying "It's [heroin use in Seabrook] of epidemic proportions". The people arrested only had at most $600 worth of heroin on them, which hardly seems like an indication of an "epidemic" to me, so I decided to look into recent heroin-related stories about Seabrook.

News stories abound with various law enforcement and community figures exclaiming that there is a "heroin epidemic" in the town of Seabrook! Yet, according to the Portsmouth Herald, in one story at least, "none of the law-enforcement officials interviewed nor the Hampton District Court had figures on the number of users or even the number of recent [heroin] arrests."

Similarly, a recent news story talks about the growing number of heroin addicts in the state of New Hampshire, and Seabrook's efforts to curb the problem. Although the piece is filled with terrible tales of addiction, there are no figures to back up claims that heroin use is actually on the rise in these communities.

It seems like we haven't matured beyond the days when "Reefer Madness" gripped the country with fear and all it took to gain support for your viewpoint was to scare the crap out of people. Is heroin good for you? No, but neither is causing hysteria over a problem that may or may not exist. Reasoned, objective analysis of addiction and use rates of a substance is essential to planning responsible public policy. I don't think you should be able to just throw around a word like "epidemic", which implies certain policy responses, unless you have more than just a few scary anecdotes and a $10 bag of white powder to back you up.

Labels: addiction, heroin

 
Darrow on Prohibition (Vol. 48)
- posted by Jim @ 9:49 AM

The loyal Vice Squad reader demands, "More about Prohibition from
Clarence Darrow 's autobiography, The Story of My Life!"
So without further ado....

Darrow recounts the disingenuous approach to Prohibition that was taken
during World War I, during which a temporary prohibition was enacted
under the guise of saving food (grain) for the war effort. Darrow believes
that the supporters of this measure were more motivated by an interest
in stopping drinking than in winning the war.

A Constitutional Amendment was needed for the federal government to
have the power to regulate alcohol. But that was all that was "needed",
Darrow notes: the amendment could simply have given the Federal
government that power (without specifying the nature of the regulation),
and then Congress could have voted for national prohibition. But instead,
the dry forces enshrined the policy itself, prohibition, into the
Constitution, "intending thereby to make it impossible ever to permit
the sale of intoxicating liquor in the United States." As for the 18th
Amendment and its implementing legislation, the Volstead Act,
"If senators and representatives had voted as they drank, no such
legislation would ever have disgraced America."

"A small minority cannot nullify a law, but where a statute is considered
tyrannical and unjust it always meets with protest. Refusal to be bound
is such a protest. If protest is so great as to interfere with its
enforcement by ordinary methods, it is plain that it has no place in the
law in the land."

"Men were as sure that it was just to condemn heresy and witchcraft
by death as their lineal descendants are sure of the righteousness of
spreading poison broadcast to-day in the interest of the 'Noble
Experiment' of prohibition."

Labels: alcohol, Darrow, policing, Prohibition

 
Quibbles can be useful
- posted by Michael @ 9:06 PM

I am glad my quibble has provoked the Vice Squad host to write his excellent reply. I agree with everything Jim said there, including his admission that he was a bit blithe in his earlier post. Now, if we could get a sufficient majority of our righteous representatives to agree and stop this senseless prohibition... I am not holding my breath though.

Labels: Prohibition, solipsism

 
Obscenity Updates, Including COPA
- posted by Jim @ 7:11 PM

Back in November, Vice Squad (guesting at Crescat Sententia) mentioned a couple in Dallas who had been convicted of three federal obscenity charges. The couple, who distributed rape porn from a website titled "The Rape Video Store," were sentenced last week to 33 months (for the husband) and 30 months (for the wife) in federal prison. The content of the videos was not available over the web; rather, the website advertised the videos, which were then mailed to people who placed orders. At the time of his arrest, the husband was a member (and 8-year veteran) of the Dallas Police Department.

In other obscenity news, the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was back in the Supreme Court for arguments last week. This law makes it illegal for commercial websites to post indecent material that is construed to be harmful to children unless it is placed behind some sort of filter to keep kids out. The law has a long history, being the progeny of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996. The CDA was found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, on the grounds that its content-based restrictions on speech were vague and overbroad.

Congress responded in 1998 to the invalidation of the CDA by passing COPA, which appropriated much of the language from the 1973 Miller v. California case that provides the framework for US obscenity law. (Here's an earlier post on Miller.) For instance, under COPA, the prohibited material, taken as a whole, must lack serious artistic, literary, scientific, or political value to minors, and “contemporary community standards” are to be employed by juries in determining whether material is harmful to minors. In addition, COPA applies only to communications for commercial purposes, which currently receive a lower level of First Amendment protection than some other types of communications, such as political speech. Further, unlike the CDA, which arguably applied to all Internet communications, including e-mail and chat room messages, COPA restricts itself to webpage communications. A preliminary injunction has so far prevented enforcement of COPA. A couple years ago the Third Circuit invalidated COPA on the grounds that the community standards provision was substantially overbroad for regulating Internet communications. (The fear was that given the borderless nature of the web, every community would be held to the standards of the most puritanical.) On May 13, 2002, the US Supreme Court disagreed with the Third Circuit, claiming that COPA’s reliance on community standards by itself did not meet the “overbroad” test that would render COPA unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. The Supreme Court kept the injunction in place, however, while sending the case back to the Third Circuit for a thorough hearing on COPA’s constitutionality that would go beyond the “community standards” issue. In March, 2003, the Third Circuit again found COPA to be unconstitutional, for an array of reasons. For instance, according to the Third Circuit, the restrictions on speech contained in COPA are not narrowly tailored to achieve the government’s purpose of preventing harm to minors from exposure to indecent materials, nor does COPA employ the least restrictive means of achieving this purpose.

Whew. For reports on the oral arguments at the Supreme Court last week, from two divergent standpoints, see here (the Baptist Press) and here (Adult Video News).

Labels: internet, obscenity, pornography, Supreme Court, teens

 
Clarence Darrow Responds to Guest Blogger!
- posted by Jim @ 9:41 AM

Guest blogger Michael Alexeev has done his host the honor of quibbling! Mike is
concerned that I too blithely assumed that drug possession is unworthy of jail,
and yes, I agree, I was too blithe about it in my post. For one, I did not
specify that I was talking "personal use quantities", and the immediate "no
punishment" argument only applies to possession for private use, not sale,
so I should have made that clear. But Mike goes further, and suggests that
maybe drug possession is like drunk driving, not immediately and necessarily
harmful to others in itself but posing enough of a risk of harm that we rightly
can proscribe drug possession and punish drug possessors, as we punish drunk
drivers. This criticism is a species of a traditional attack on John Stuart Mill's
harm principle, that we cannot easily draw the line between self-regarding
acts and acts that harm (or pose a non-negligible risk of harming) others.

In general, it is indeed hard to draw the self-regarding/non-self-regarding
line. But for me (and for Mill), it isn't a close call with drug possession (hence
my leaving it out of the post). The criminalization of drug possession is an
unjust restraint upon liberty.

The full argument requires an examination of the external costs of
drug use, and the certainty with which these externalities arise from drug
use. I won't go through all the possibilities here, but I will state the general
conclusion: the external costs that plausibly arise from drug use are way too
uncertain to justify criminalization. Millions of Americans have used illicit
drugs, and the vast majority of them have not caused any problem for anybody.

But my assertion alone is of course unsatisfactory, so let me at least point
the way to a more organized approach. In what ways do drugs cause harm to others?

Mark Kleiman, in his book Against Excess, offers one potential accounting of
"harms to others" associated with drug use: dereliction of duty; crime; nuisance;
health damage; drain on common resources; risk-spreading and cross subsidy
effects; leading others to use drugs (in epidemiological fashion); and "notional"
damage. (Notional damage is the possibility that some people are made
unhappy or disgusted simply by knowledge of others' drug use.)

Consider Kleiman's first three external costs, dereliction of duty, crime, and
public nuisance. Dereliction of duty (such as failure to provide for children)
can rightly be punished, whatever the cause. But the potential for drug taking
to lead to this outcome is not sufficiently direct and certain to justify
making drugs illegal. Likewise, the crime that is engendered by some types of
drug consumption -- violence by drunks, for instance -- is not sufficiently
direct and certain to stand as a basis for outlawing drugs. The external harm
that arises from creating a public nuisance, like the harms from dereliction
of duty or drug-induced crime, could provide a reason to punish those who
create public nuisances. Again, however, the public nuisance associated with
most types of drug use is insufficiently direct and certain to justify drug
prohibitions.

If a person had once been violent under the influence of alcohol or drugs,
however, then a prohibition specific to that person would be OK by Mill
and by me.

Some drug use might have a direct influence on the health of others, and such
use could justly be controlled on that basis. Second-hand smoke is the premier
example here, though the extent to which it causes health risks to others is
quite controversial.

Kleiman's remaining types of external costs (drains on common resources,
risk-spreading and cross subsidy effects, leading others to use drugs, or
"notional" damage) do not appear to me to "rise to the Millian level" to
justify prohibition. Such costs, to quote Mill, generally do not constitute
"perceptible hurt to any assignable individual...."

Let me give the last word (for now--Mike?) to new Vice Squad hero Clarence
Darrow: "Criminal statutes are very different from civil legislation. Punishment
is inflicted on the theory that a right-thinking person could not commit the
act without a feeling of guilt. No such feeling has ever been experienced
with the taking of a drink of intoxicating liquor." (...or from the taking
of a hit of an intoxicating drug...OK, couldn't leave the very last word to
Darrow.)

Labels: Darrow, Mill, recreational drug use

 
Clarence Darrow on Prohibition (II)
- posted by Jim @ 8:34 AM

Yesterday I started to relate some of what famed criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow had to say about Prohibition in his autobiography, The Story of My Life. I thought that I would expand upon the Darrow/Prohibition theme today. Here's a brief excerpt on the practice of denaturing industrial alcohol in ways that made it not only unpalatable but sometimes poisonous:

"So far as I know, no organization of human beings heretofore has coldly
and deliberately advocated poisoning any one who might run counter to their
will. The prohibitionists insist that alcohol sold for mechanical purposes
and shipped broadcast over all America shall contain deadly poison. They
advocate this, knowing that much of it is redistilled and used as a beverage,
that many people might and do get it through accident and without any design
to take intoxicants; and that, at best, or worst, to drink it is only a minor
offense; yet men and women, who in ordinary life are kind and humane, are so
obsessed by their delusions and so sure of their convictions, and so resentful
of those who do not follow their dictates, that they are willing to condemn
to blindness and death thousands of people, without arrest or indictment or
trial, by putting poison into their drink. Heretofore such measures have not
been resorted to against anything but rats and vermin, and many humane
persons hesitate to do this."

Labels: Darrow, Prohibition

 
A quibble with the host
- posted by Michael @ 6:20 PM

In an earlier post, the Vice Squad host Jim Leitzel argues that cost-benefit analysis has a rather limited role in evaluating policies that involve jailing people. I agree, although I think that this role, while limited, is still quite significant. However, more relevant to the theme of Vice Squad, I do not agree with Jim’s apparent implication that drug possession is obviously a victimless crime that deserves no jail punishment. Presumably, the proponents of drug prohibition think that drug users impose costs on the rest of us (i.e., create negative externalities). One may or may not agree with that view, but it is clearly out there. True, a big part of the argument in Dr. Miron’s paper that I discussed here was that many of the costs that are added up in the COI studies are not external costs, but private costs of drug users. Still, some of those costs such as the cost of health treatment paid for from public funds impose costs on everybody. Moreover, the proponents of prohibition would argue that drug use is associated with increased crime. Again, one may not agree with that argument. I, for one, think that prohibition does a poor job at limiting drug use and it creates more crime than would most forms of legalization. But the prohibition proponents’ arguments cannot be simply dismissed.

One could perhaps say that drug possession by itself certainly doesn’t hurt anybody. But this is not a good argument. Our legal system in general routinely punishes people, often deservedly, for activities that have not hurt anybody yet but increase the probability of doing so in the future. Drunk driving is one of such activities, not to mention attempted murder. And there are good reasons for such punishments (see, for example, David Friedman’s Law’s Order, pp. 74-82) .

I stress that all this is not to defend prohibition, but to take the arguments of its proponents seriously. The major point of cost-benefit analysis of drug prohibition is that the potential benefits of prohibition are highly uncertain and may not even exist at all, while many of the costs are clear and substantial.

Labels: driving, drugs, externalities, Prohibition

 
Another Victory
- posted by Michael @ 6:15 PM

I am proud to report another great victory in the war against drugs in Monroe County, IN, as reported in Saturday, March 6, 2004 edition of The Herald-Times (subscription required). As you will see from the story, the enemy was smart and cunning, but the law enforcement has prevailed. Two Monroe County work-release inmates, Shawn and Anthony, were charged on Friday with “conspiracy to commit trafficking with an inmate and trafficking with an inmate, respectively.” (BTW, this quote reminds me of an old Soviet joke that under capitalism man exploits man, and under socialism it’s the other way around.) According to the story, on Thursday, Shawn called the jail to report that Anthony had marijuana hidden in his sock. Later it turned out that it was Shawn himself who gave the drugs to Anthony. The investigator hypothesized that Shawn wanted to turn Anthony in, because Anthony was competing with Shawn in the business of smuggling drugs into the jail. Shawn apparently did not realize that he would get in trouble as well.

The article also reports of a third work-release inmate being charged with smuggling drugs. It is unclear if this breakthrough in the war on drugs was related to the first two, but it is interesting in its own right. The inmate was taken to Bloomington Hospital for X-rays that revealed “something lodged in his body cavity.” “Once he was confronted with [the pictures] he went ahead and pulled it out on his own,” the investigator said. Now, not only all the law-abiding residents of Monroe County can feel safe in their homes, but even the inmates of the county jail can sleep peacefully knowing that the three of their friends no longer would be able to enjoy the wicked weed or even their work-release privileges.

Labels: drugs, informants, marijuana, policing

 
Clarence Darrow on Prohibition (I)
- posted by Jim @ 1:04 PM

I just finished reading Clarence Darrow's autobiography, The Story of My Life
(New York: Scribner's, 1960 [1932]), which I enjoyed way beyond my expectations.
Some of the special payoff comes from the local color, in that I live in
Darrow's old neighborhood. But the vice-specific material in the autobiography
also provided a lift. Darrow took the John Stuart Mill approach to self-regarding
actions, it seems. He was a fervent opponent of alcohol Prohibition, and even
co-authored a book (which I have not read) attacking national Prohibition. But
he has plenty to say about Prohibition in his autobiography, too. The Story of
My Life was originally published in 1932, while Prohibition still ruled the
land.

Darrow highlights the contradiction between the gluttony that he attributes to
many temperance reformers and their stern warnings about touching even a drop
of alcohol, even though "There were always more graves filled from overeating
than from over-drinking..." [This is recognized, incidentally, in the modern
day US, where obesity leads to more early deaths than alcohol.] Picking up
again, from page 287 (of the 1960 Scribner's edition, not the more recent edition
linked above)...

"Puritanism has always associated pleasure with sin. To the real Puritan, life
is a grim, depressing duty; this earth is nothing but a preparatory school
for entering heaven. And to be happy in heaven, one must be unhappy here.
So the old revivalist and temperance reformer had no difficulty in holding
up the drunkard as a horrible example: Just see how happy and carefree and
unmeddlesome he was; always so satisfied with his lot in life and willing
that every one else should do as he liked; naturally there was something
wrong with such a method of living. The glutton dragged himself to the
meeting and shouted "Amen!" in the right places, a friend to heartburn but
not to hiccough....

Devouring all the food that one could hold was praiseworthy. But drinking
liquor, even one mouthful, was damnable....

It was on this popular foundation that prohibitionists organized their
forces and waged the campaign to destroy the liberties of American
citizens. It was on this foundation that they foisted upon the United
States a reign of terror, intimidation, violence, and bigotry unprecedented
in the modern world."

Times certainly have changed: we can no longer claim that our current
prohibition is unprecedented.

[If you think that the title of this post threatens more later on Darrow
and Prohibition, uh, well, that might be the case.]

Labels: alcohol, Darrow, Mill, obesity, Prohibition

 
Other States Join Michigan Appeal On Interstate Alcohol Shipments
- posted by Jim @ 2:06 PM

When the 21st Amendment ended US national alcohol prohibition in late 1933, it did not legalize alcohol. Rather, the Amendment authorized the individual states to regulate alcohol as they saw fit, and explicitly proclaimed that alcohol imports had to adhere to state laws. Many states remained dry for a long time -- Mississippi didn't allow spirits to be sold legally until the late 1960s. And of course, many US counties and cities remain dry even today.

The desire of wine enthusiasts to make out-of-state purchases over the Internet has refueled the debate as to the extent that states can regulate imports. Some state regulations that ban interstate direct wine shipments appear to be designed not to control alcohol distribution to minors, or to ensure alcohol tax collections, but rather, to protect the economic interests of some established in-state distributors and retailers -- at a cost to consumers. These regulations are now being challenged. The court tussles pit the 21st Amendment (giving states control over alcohol imports) with the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, which preserves the regulation of interstate economic activity to the Federal government.

A federal court ruling in Michigan last year sided with the commerce clause, as Michigan's alcohol control regime forbids direct shipments only from out of state, not in-state, wineries. The state of Michigan has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, and this past week, 36 other states joined with Michigan in asking the Supreme Court to overturn the earlier decision. Here is a press release from an interested party, the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America, Inc.

A Nobel Prize-winning economist, Berkeley Professor Daniel McFadden, has addressed this debate (3 page pdf here); he believes that some state laws (including, presumably, the overturned Michigan system) go too far in sacrificing consumer interests, and for what he believes is a minimal gain to the protected parties. McFadden owns a small winery, too.

Labels: alcohol, internet, Prohibition, Supreme Court

 
John Walters, Drug Czar
- posted by Nikkie @ 4:55 PM

Pete Guither at Drug War Rant pointed out that the drug czar held an on-line chat Monday. The chat can be read here. The entire thing is basically a load of crap, but my favorite bit is this exchange:

"Edwin, from Washington, D.C. writes:
What is the most challenging aspect of trying to eliminate drug-trafficking?

John P. Walters
In the last few years we have really made an effort to analyze drug production and trafficking through a business model. Anyone who runs a company...knows that there are market forces that can hurt the bottom line....We are having better success than at any previous time...."

Yes, and anyone who runs a company knows that if they've been producing a horrible product for the last 30 years that costs millions of dollars of year to make and is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, but results in zero net gains to the company or to society, they should probably stop producing said product. If the government is so keen on running the drug war based on a business model, it's time for them to admit that it's a sucky product and should be taken off the shelves immediately.

Labels: Drug Czar, Drug WarRant, drugs

 
Illinois House Looking to Increase Jobless Rate
- posted by Jim @ 4:38 PM

Once you decide that a substance is evil, there doesn't seem to be any limit as to how far you might go in combating the substance. You become willing to put people in jail if they happen to possess that substance. You become willing to put people in jail if you have evidence that they once used that substance. You do not let deathly ill people use that substance, even if it helps relieve some of their symptoms. You declare items that might be used in combination with that substance to be prohibited, too. And yesterday, an Illinois House panel (Chicago Tribune registration required) decided that it would be a good idea to put people in jail if they possessed some item that might confound the tests designed to uncover use of the demon substance:

"The legislation, endorsed 13-0 by the Judiciary Criminal Law Committee, would impose a $1,000 minimum fine and possible prison time for anyone caught with another person's urine with the intent to deceive testers.

The penalties also could be imposed for possessing other products used to cheat drug tests, such as synthetic urine, human saliva or shampoo specially formulated to deceive hair follicle tests.

Any merchant who sold the products, such as over the Internet, and shipped them to Illinois customers could also be charged under the legislation."

Why the "Increase Jobless Rate" headline? Well, the Committee acted out of "growing concern that people are cheating on drug tests to get a job."

Labels: drugs, Illinois, testing

 
Let's Talk about Marinol
- posted by Nikkie @ 2:43 PM

I noted a few days ago that an Illinois legislator proposed a bill that would make it legal for individuals to possess marijuana for medical purposes. On Tuesday, the state legislature buried the bill in committee, likely until after the 2004 election.

Dr. Andrea Barthwell, deputy director of the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy, noted that one of the effective components of marijuana, THC, has been approved for sale in the prescription drug Marinol, and that marijuana advocates ignore that fact. In a 1990 survey of Oncologists, researchers asked for comparisons on the effectiveness of Marinol and smoked marijuana. Forty-four percent believed smoked marijuana was better. Patients with severe nausea, which marijuana helps curb, are often unable to swallow pills. Further, because THC takes so long to take effect when ingested, it is difficult to develop appropriate dosage guidelines. Finally, Marinol is up to five times more potent than THC in smoked forms. Patients often report feeling more lethargic and "out of it" with Marinol than with smoked marijuana. A country where everyone walks around dazed and confused, which the federal government thinks is a forgone conclusion if pot is made legal for medical purposes, is actually far more likely if patients are using the already legal Marinol, than if they were smoking pot.

In keeping with the Bush administration's policy of not letting the American people participate in the governing process, Dr. Barthwell stated, "We never let the electorate decide what medicine is - we should not go down that pathway." What about when the federal government blocks access to legal marijuana for research purposes, despite recommendations from the National Institute of Health that marijuana may indeed have valuable medicinal qualities, and that further research is needed? When our representatives in the government fail us - in this case by blocking research proposals and stalling researchers - citizens have a duty to speak up. The electorate is not deciding what medicine is. The electorate is doing what our "elected" officials have failed to do - looking at current research that indicates medical marijuana is effective in helping some people, and calling for more unbiased studies on the issue.

Labels: Drug Czar, Illinois, marijuana, prescription drugs

 
Advocates of Reasonable Drug Policy Labeled "Zealots"
- posted by Nikkie @ 11:09 AM

This story by Linda Slobodian of the Calgary Herald is another classic example of poor research leading to poor "journalism" that serves only to prop-up government myths about marijuana use and effects of the criminalization of the drug.

The article starts off with some "declarations" of those who supposedly support marijuana decriminalization, such as the fact that police resources used to fight marijuana possession are a waste of taxpayer dollars. The article continues, "Those declarations are what devout users...trot out in their unfaltering, religious-like defense of marijuana." Excuse me??!! At least those individuals in favor of removing criminal penalties for consuming pot have well-reasoned, legitimate arguments to support their cause. This cannot be said for drug crusaders whose best and most baffling argument seems to be that "yes the current prohibition regime doesn't work, but anything else we could try would just be much worse. We can't take that risk." Ms. Slobodian thinks she is making a case in her article for the continued criminalization of pot. However, she unwittingly outlines many good reasons why marijuana should be legalized.

I'd like to point out a few things Ms. Slobodian got wrong. First of all, supporting marijuana decriminalization does not mean that one "supports marijuana". Those who support the decriminalization of pot do so for various reasons. Some note the fact that the current regime fails most any cost-benefit analysis, while others oppose marijuana criminalization for philosophical reasons, maintaining that our current system is simply unjust. Most advocates of marijuana decriminalization are not advocates for marijuana use. They are not trying to get more people to smoke pot, and they recognize that marijuana is not "harmless".

Further, one does not have to use marijuana to recognize the hypocrisy and harm that current marijuana laws exact on our society. Our current regime puts hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens behind bars every year, and has severe costs to society.

Ms. Slobodian notes that marijuana provides money to organized crime. This means that it is per se bad, and presumably should remain illegal. Um...if it's not illegal, the bad guys won't get to make money off of it anymore. The author also points out that a lot of police resources are spent tracking down marijuana users. Again, she somehow thinks this fact supports her position that pot should remain illegal, failing to recognize that police resources could be freed up to go after real criminals if marijuana was legal.

Slobodian trots out the discredited claim that THC levels are much higher now than they were in the 60's, and so pot, although it was o.k. for your parents to smoke at the original Woodstock, has somehow morphed into an evil demon unfit for consumption at Woodstock '94. Calgary Police Chief Jack Beaton was quoted in the article as saying that because of this huge surge in potency, "marijuana is now addictive." NORML explains how the U.S. Government arrived at its conclusion that pot is more potent now than it was back in the day. The government compared marijuana that was not very good quality to begin with, and had been sitting in police lockers for years (thus degrading THC levels) with later samples of good quality marijuana. Thus they concluded that THC levels had increased dramatically. This myth of increased overall potentcy has since been discredited in several studies.

Finally, Ms. Slobodian notes that "even the Marijuana Party of Alberta declares in its mission statement that 'one must be of the minimum age of 18 to consume marijuana or grow marijuana'", and again somehow believes that this helps her make a case for criminalization. Apparently, advocates of marijuana legalization for adults are responsible individuals who understand that it's not appropriate for children to use this drug. Much like we've decided as a society that it's not appropriate for kids to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes. How can this author possibly think that this statement adds credence to her argument that pot should remain illegal? The article explains that the Marijuana Party "would like to see provincial dollars diverted to 'better use, such as stopping terrorism or enhancing social health and education programs.'" Sounds reasonable enough.

Ms. Slobodian concludes her piece with an inflammatory statement by Beaton in response to the Marijuana Party's above statements. Beaton spouts, "They have a vested interest. I would like to hear someone from that party that doesn't smoke marijuana talk intelligently about an issue." I guess when you've had your head buried in the sand for so long, and are so completely wrong about something, the only way you can cope with well-reasoned arguments against your view point is to engage in ad hominem, childish attacks.

Labels: marijuana

 
Prostitution Tolerance Zone Again Loses in Scotland
- posted by Jim @ 6:37 PM

In mid-February, Vice Squad looked at a setback to a plan to allow open streetwalking in designated areas of Scottish cities. The red-light district plan continues to meet resistance; this time, the Scottish Executive refused to back the proposal, so its prospects in the Scottish Parliament are quite dim.

Labels: Britain, policing, prostitution

 
Finnish Alcohol Update
- posted by Jim @ 6:04 PM

Last week Vice Squad mentioned the significant decrease in Finnish alcohol taxes, a move undertaken to remove some of the incentive for Finns to buy booze abroad. Lower prices didn't seem to produce much in the way of an immediate response, but some of Finland's remaining regulations concerning international alcohol trade have raised the ire of the European Commission. The two Finnish provisions creating controversy are that large imports of alcohol (even from European Union-member countries) by individuals must be declared, and that individual importers of large amounts must be able to show that the imports are for personal use, not resale. Restrictions on imports for commercial use are not problematic, but the burden of proof, according to the Commission, should be on the government (to show that the alcohol is not intended for personal use), and not on the traveler (to show that the alcohol is intended for personal use, which includes consumption at private gatherings.)

Labels: alcohol, EU, Finland, taxes

 
Cook County Pursuing Major Coke Dealer
- posted by Jim @ 2:05 PM

You have to admire the Javert-like qualities of Cook County prosecutors. After two mistrials, they are still hoping to hang a 6-year sentence on a guy who apparently helped secure some cocaine (in 1999) for a seemingly desperate "friend" he ran into in a bar. The friend turned out to be an informant. Chicagoans will not be able to sleep soundly until this trafficker, this drug kingpin (45 years old, father of seven adopted kids), is locked up for a long, long time. Read the woeful tale in today's Trib (registration required).

Labels: Chicago, cocaine, informants, policing

 
A $35 Pack of Cigarettes
- posted by Jim @ 1:52 PM

Or, three packs for $105. That was the going rate, apparently, at a Luzerne County (Pennsylvania) prison. The prison guard who allegedly sold the smokes to an inmate will probably be asked to find employment elsewhere. The cigarette deal wasn't just to fuel the inmate's personal consumption, oh no. According to the linked article, it was part of a "moneymaking scheme," in which the inmate intended to sell individual cigarettes to other inmates, in the process "earning a $100 to $120 profit". Pretty specific profit estimates in prison, eh?

Meanwhile, the supplying-drugs-to-inmates scandal at Illinois' Stateville Correctional Center has led to a 70-month jail term for a man who supplied cocaine to a prison guard (Chicago Tribune registration required -- for the article, not the jail term). Vice Squad has tracked the Stateville scandal in our fashion, most recently on November 21.

Labels: cocaine, Illinois, policing, tobacco

 
Who bears the costs of drug prohibition?
- posted by Michael @ 9:17 PM

Earlier today the Vice Squad host Jim Leitzel argued that the political support for such an apparently wasteful policy as drug prohibition probably has something to do with the fact that "Prohibition rains havoc upon inner cities, but much less so upon middle-class neighborhoods." That is probably true, but even "much less" havoc can impose considerable costs. More important, who pays most of the taxes that fund the prohibition policy? Also, I am sure that the middle class is the main consumer of the illegal drugs and, therefore, has to pay extra for the stuff. In addition, middle-class consumers are always in danger of being caught. I think the most likely explanation for the apparent political support of the prohibition is that somehow the costs borne by the middle class are underappreciated by it. As a person who is used to assuming that over the long run people generally act at least close to rationally, I am not comfortable with such explanation, but nothing better comes to mind so far.

Labels: drugs, Prohibition, taxes

 
Pyrrhus Watch: Victory #14
- posted by Michael @ 9:13 PM

I am shocked! Wednesday’s Herald-Times of my hometown Bloomington, IN (subscription required), reports that two Bloomington men have been indicted on charges of conspiracy to manufacture, distribute and possess with the intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms (!) of pot over a three-year period. And I was wondering why the attendance in my classes has been so poor over the same period. These two alleged conspirators must have supplied every man, woman, and child on our peaceful little campus of about 36,000 students. But wait. It turns out that, according to the indictment, the two Bloomingtonians were distributing the weed throughout the entire southern Indiana (speaking of sleepy little places). Where would they be getting the stuff? It is believed that the Hell’s Angels gang of British Columbia was the supplier of the premium brand referred to as “B.C. Bud.” Apparently, this is good stuff, if the price is any indication of quality. The newspaper article informs us that unlike Mexican marijuana that typically sells for between $1,200 and $1,800 per pound, the “Bud” can fetch anywhere from $4,000 to $5,000 a pound. I am glad that the accused did not try to push some cheap imports on the unsuspecting Hoosiers. Also, it appears that not the entire production was outsourced abroad. One of the men is also accused of growing marijuana in his Bloomington home. “At least one indoor growth was uncovered during the execution of a search warrant,” said the chief of the Indianapolis Drug Unit for the US Department of Justice. He also said that there was evidence of a “failed growth” at one of the homes. (I wonder what that looks like.) This must be it. Could there possibly be any of the wicked drug left in the entire state south of Gary? I am sure not. And that is good, because I don’t think I can survive another shock like this.

Labels: marijuana, policing, search

 
Drug Prohibition and Cost-Benefit Analysis
- posted by Jim @ 4:42 PM

Guest blogger Michael Alexeev reviewed the costs and benefits of drug prohibition yesterday, and concluded that "the costs of drug prohibition policy are large and most of them are quite certain, while the benefits appear to be modest and are difficult to quantify." So on cost-benefit grounds, drug prohibition does not look like a good policy.

[Note: From here on out in this post I will lean heavily upon the wonderful book, Legalize This!, by Douglas Husak. I have sung the praises of this book before.]

But what if it went with the other way, what if prohibition "worked" (and substantially, not narrowly worked) in a cost-benefit sense? Should we then all jump on the prohibitionists' bandwagon? No. Cost-benefit analysis is capable of hinting at just how bad a policy drug prohibition is, but it cannot justify drug prohibition. Prohibition (as practiced in the US) involves locking people in cages because they are walking around with some illicit drug on them. But locking people in cages cannot be done just because it has "net benefits"; rather, we can only lock people away if they have done something wrong. It might be that we could demonstrate, through cost-benefit analysis, that a good policy (i.e., one that would have positive net benefits) would be to jail everyone who wears a green tee shirt, or who has a tattoo -- but these policies cannot be justified in that manner. Neither can drug prohibition.

To see the limits of cost-benefit analysis, what if we found out today that those people who commit aggravated assault get more benefit, substantially more benefit, out of this activity than we previously thought -- so much more benefit that on net, aggravated assault brings social benefits? Should we legalize aggravated assault? Of course we should not. Notice that for real crimes, crimes that have victims, no one turns to cost-benefit analysis to determine whether we should punish perpetrators. We jail convicted murderers, and would even if we couldn't demonstrate that such a policy passes a cost-benefit analysis. The very fact that we think it is illuminating to examine drug prohibition through a cost-benefit lens indicates that people should not be punished for drug possession.

Labels: drugs, Prohibition

 
Suburbia v. the Inner City in Drug Policy
- posted by Jim @ 9:51 AM

Yesterday Vice Squad guest blogger Professor Michael Alexeev asked why we have drug prohibition, given that a feasible alternative such as some form of partial or full legalization looks like it would be a much better overall policy. Part of the answer, I think, lies in the distribution of the costs wrought by the current policy. Prohibition rains havoc upon inner cities, but much less so upon middle-class neighborhoods. Indeed, residents of these neighborhoods are likely to view prohibition as valuable in helping to keep their children away from the scourge of drugs. The harm to foreign governments of drug prohibition also doesn't seem to receive much notice, while the costs in terms of corruption of our own government and the undermining of policing tend to be vastly underestimated, I would argue, though the reasons for such an underestimation I cannot fathom. We could add to this list the enormous vested interests in the current narco-prison complex -- though there are many police voices that are being raised against drug prohibition.

In a short article, "The Distributive Politics of Drug Policy," David Boyum compares our current drug policy regime with one that shifts away from punishment towards treatment. Not only are the costs of the current policy disproportionately borne in the inner city, Boyum notes, residents in those neighborhoods would also be the chief recipients of publicly funded treatment: "What all of this suggests is that an expansion in publicly funded drug treatment at the expense of drug enforcement is a bad deal for the middle class--at least when judged from the viewpoint of narrow self-interest."

Labels: drugs, Prohibition, treatment

 
Why Do We Have Drug Prohibition?
- posted by Michael @ 8:18 PM

Recently I came across a paper by Jeffrey Miron (Department of Economics, Boston University) on the economic costs of drug abuse. Miron evaluates the cost-of-illness (COI) studies on the issue that estimate the cost of drug abuse in the US at over $140 billion. He points out, quite correctly, that these numbers say nothing about the advisability of drug prohibition in the US. To begin with, in order to evaluate a policy one needs to look at the alternatives, and the COI studies do no such thing. Moreover, much, if not most, of the costs that these studies attribute to drug abuse are actually the costs of drug prohibition. For example, the COI estimates include the loss of productivity due to incarceration for drug-related crimes, including drug possession. Surely, this is not a cost of drug abuse per se. Another big chunk of the COI estimates constitute private costs rather than the costs external to drug users. An example of such private costs would be the medical costs paid for from private funds and the loss of personal income. In a market economy, we generally do not view behavior that results in private costs as worthy of public policy intervention. We let individuals balance the costs and benefits of their actions, as long as they do not affect the welfare of others. While this approach may not always work well in the case of highly addictive substances, we use it even with alcohol and tobacco products. There are other serious methodological problems with the COI studies as well. Miron concludes that “at least $93.1 billion should be entirely eliminated from the economic cost of drug abuse, and [the rest] should be at least partially eliminated.” (p.9) In addition, prohibition itself imposes great costs that are not mentioned at all in the COI studies, even under the wrong headings, such as the erosion of our civil liberties and the due process the forgone potential medicinal benefits of some of the drugs, and so on. I would add that significant costs are imposed on the innocent people who are being searched and otherwise hassled by the police on the suspicion of drug-related activities, and the effort spent by the actual drug dealers and users on avoiding apprehension or any encounter with the police for that matter. I did not see these costs mentioned even in Miron’s paper.

The huge costs of the drug prohibition policy do not seem to be significantly offset by the plausible decrease in the consumption of drugs. Without going into the details, let me just mention that, according to Miron, the existing studies “suggest a relatively modest effect of prohibition on drug consumption.” (p.18)

To summarize, the costs of drug prohibition policy are large and most of them are quite certain, while the benefits appear to be modest and are difficult to quantify.

Miron stresses that his paper does conclude anything about the desirability of drug prohibition, but the implication is fairly strong and obvious, at least to me, that drug prohibition policy is greatly inferior to some form of partial or even complete legalization.

The question that I think is much more difficult to answer though is why do we still have drug prohibition? Is there a huge popular support for this policy? If yes, why? If no, what are the political coalitions that impose drug prohibition on the rest of us? I don’t have the answers although I imagine the degree of popular support for drug prohibition is more or less well known, and it is probably substantial. If that is indeed the case, I am still at a loss as to why such support exists and why a rational policy debate on the issue seems to be confined to the academic circles. Maybe I can't figure it out because it's getting late. "Morning is smarter than evening," as a Russian saying goes. Maybe I''ll have an answer tomorrow, but don't count on it.

Labels: drugs, Prohibition

 
Anti-Smoking More Important Than Helping Kids...
- posted by Jim @ 7:22 PM

Well, that isn't exactly what a US District Judge ruled. But he did claim that Toledo, Ohio's "Taverns for Tots" organization could not allow smoking at its meetings. Seems that the Judge was led to believe that Taverns For Tots wasn't a legitimate charitable organization, but rather, simply a vehicle to elude Toledo's widespread smoking ban, which includes bars and restaurants (but not private social events, like charity fundraisers). (Presumably it actually did give money to children's charities, however.) But the Judge is probably right, Taverns For Tots is not a bona fide charity. One tavern owner quoted in the linked article had this to say: "'the biggest sham' is the claim by health agencies and anti-tobacco groups that second-hand smoke is dangerous." And indeed, the effects of environmental tobacco smoke are controversial.

Labels: smoking ban, tobacco

 
Policy Lessons From Abroad
- posted by Jim @ 6:49 PM

Indonesia is finally getting around to enforcing its drug laws, and it is none too soon. According to this linked article (thanks to Crim Law for the pointer):"President Megawati Sukarnoputri in 2002 declared war on drugs, saying: 'For those who distribute drugs, life sentences and other prison sentences of dozens of years...are no longer sufficient. No sentence is sufficient other than the death sentence.'" And even possession is apparently a potential capital crime in Indonesia. Now that's a level of seriousness in combating drugs that I think we should all emulate.

Ugh. Could you imagine the President's statement applied to sellers of any other substance? Alcohol sellers: "No sentence is sufficient other than the death sentence." (Maybe those Iraqi thugs are progressive thinkers when it comes to their vice control.) Peanut sellers (after all, some people are deathly allergic to peanuts): "No sentence is sufficient other than the death sentence." Good thing that there is no violent crime or terrorism in Indonesia, so that police can focus their resources on those unfit-to-live drug possessors. Sorta like in the good ol' USA...

Labels: Asia, drugs, policing

 
Colorado To Lower Drinking Age!!!
- posted by Jim @ 5:50 PM

Sure, there will be some conditions. One is that the underage drinker must spit out the wine after tasting it.

The problem, it seems, is culinary schools, which have students under the age of 21 but that also require some wine tasting as part of the curriculum. According to this article in Wine Spectator Online, the state of Colorado might come to the rescue of the culinary schools: "Senate Bill 82, introduced by Sen. Ken Kester (R) [and passed by the State Senate], would allow students between the ages of 18 and 21 who are enrolled in accredited culinary programs to sample wines -- as long as they spit them out after tasting." I wouldn't want the job of verifying that all of the wine was, er, returned.

It turns out that other states already have the culinary school exception! Maybe we can look for some similar exceptions in other areas of vice laws: how about allowing medical marijuana to sick people if they promise not to inhale?

Labels: alcohol, teens

 
Call for Prostitution Regulation Reform in Canada
- posted by Jim @ 5:33 PM

Prostitution per se is legal in Canada, but related activities, such as soliciting or operating a bawdy house, remain criminalized. As a result, many or most Canadian prostitutes work in violation of the law. Yesterday, a report (available here) on Canadian prostitution policy was issued by the Pivot Legal Society of Vancouver. The report, written from a harm reduction viewpoint, argues for the repeal of most of the laws that criminalize aspects of the adult sex trade. The general argument is that these laws, that prevent sex workers from engaging in the legitimate economy, contribute to many of the problems that they face, particularly the violence directed at sex workers. (There have been many murders and disappearances of sex workers in Vancouver in recent years.)

The report is largely based on interviews (which took the form of legal affidavits) with low income prostitutes, those who are most marginalized. The close connection between such sex work and alcohol and other drug addiction is brought out clearly. (One sex worker even described giving up prostitution in favor of cocaine selling because of police pressure on prostitutes!) Even for those who do not support the regulatory changes that are suggested -- I do support them -- the report makes for fascinating (if often depressing) reading. It is a very high quality report, one that should be influential in future debates over prostitution policy in Canada.

Labels: Canada, harm reduction, prostitution

 
Ever Feel Like You're Banging Your Head Against a Wall?
- posted by Nikkie @ 10:55 AM

Why oh why must these drug crusaders continually torment me on a daily basis?

Today, the Illinois legislature will hear testimony on medical marijuana. Rep. Larry McKeon, a Democrat from Chicago has proposed legislation that will allow anyone diagnosed with a debilitating illness to possess six marijuana plants and an ounce of usable marijuana without fear of prosecution. This builds on a 1978 law that makes it legal for physicians to prescribe marijuana for certain conditions. The proposed bill contains all the usual safeguards surrounding medical marijuana use - registration with the state health department, licensing cards, etc.

The drug crusaders, opponents of all rational, informed, and considered thought, are of course, against this measure. Displaying their stereotypically baffling "logic", opponents of the bill have stated that "if marijuana is perceived as a medicine, youth will no longer see any harm to this drug". Right. Just like all the other medicines out there with ten pages of side effects listed on their labels, per FDA requirements. Acknowledging the medicinal purposes of a substance does not automatically negate any of its potential harmful side effects, nor does it mandate that these side effects should be ignored. Morphine is a Schedule II drug in the U.S. for god's sake, meaning that the government has acknowledged its medicinal value. I don't think anyone would argue that people in severe pain who need morphine for relief should not be given the drug because some wacky teens might possibly get their hands on it. Marijuana is still classified as a Schedule I drug, meaning it has no medicinal value in the eyes of the government, despite several studies reaching conclusions to the contrary.

Good luck to Representative McKeon in his fight towards a more reasonable drug policy in this country. And shame on those who use hysterical rhetoric to deny sick people medicine and lock up law-abiding citizens for using a substance that the crusaders have deemed "evil" for no good reason.

Labels: Illinois, marijuana, prescription drugs

 
Cigarette Distributor Wins One in Pennsylvania
- posted by Jim @ 10:40 AM

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has been taking on cigarette manufacturers who were not parties to the 1998 "Master Settlement" with Big Tobacco, and who haven't been funding escrow accounts as required by some related legislation. Just last week, Pennsylvania settled a lawsuit against one non-participating manufacturer. But yesterday came word that an appeals court sided with a tobacco distributor in another Pennsylvania suit aimed at securing escrow payments. The court ruled that the legislation specifically refers to non-participating manufacturers, not distributors of cigarettes. The Illinois-based distributor, therefore, is not liable for such payments, though perhaps the manufacturer (located in India) might be.

According to the linked Associated Press story, "The state Attorney General's office has sued six companies for allegedly failing to comply with the [settlement-related] act. It has won one, lost one and settled one; three are pending before Commonwealth Court." A short overview of the six Pennsylvania cases can be found here.

For an argument that the 1998 Master Settlement with Big Tobacco constitutes (among other debilities) a violation of antitrust laws through its price-fixing and entry-deterring effects, see this Cato Institute publication (pdf, 29 pages) from May, 2000.

Labels: litigation, Master Settlement Agreement, tobacco

 
Guest Blogger
- posted by Jim @ 7:19 PM

I am very pleased to announce that a good friend of Vice Squad, Professor Michael Alexeev, has agreed to join us for a week as a guest blogger. Mike is an economist at Indiana University, and he is an expert in microeconomic theory, law and economics, and post-socialist economic transition. Mike is new to blogging and his research interests don't really include vice, but as you will see, he's a quick study (as well as an all-around good guy.) Welcome to Vice Squad, Mike -- but I should warn you, it can be addictive.

Labels: solipsism

 
Tobacco and the Military
- posted by Jim @ 3:21 PM

Cigar and pipe smoking is way up among US soldiers, even as cigarette smoking has fallen, according to this fine article in the St. Petersburg Times: "The Defense Department survey noted a "sharp increase" or "strong resurgence" in cigar and pipe smoking, rising from 18.7 percent in 1995 to 32.6 percent in 1998."

The article has some nice historical background: "During World War I, the government began including cigarettes in soldiers' rations. It was a time before medical evidence linked illness with cigarettes, historians said. In fact, many at the time viewed smoking as glamorous.

Gen. John J. Pershing, who commanded the American Expeditionary Force during World War I said: 'You ask me what we need to win the war? I answer tobacco as much as bullets.'" Cigarettes were removed from military rations in 1975.

The connection between vice and military service is deep and ancient. Soldiers frequently have been rewarded with tobacco, caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol -- military service can be extremely tedious, and these substances have long been popular within the military. Soldiers based abroad pick up some vice habits -- heroin in Vietnam, for instance -- that they sometimes bring back home. Alternatively, soldiers can spread their existing habits to new territories -- Coca Cola has been a major beneficiary of US troops stationed abroad. The role of troops in globalizing drugs is discussed in David Courtwright's Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World, which Vice Squad has previously discussed.

Labels: military, smoking, tobacco

 
Thailand's Vice Contradictions
- posted by Jim @ 2:17 PM

Thailand has been the recent scene of discussions to legalize prostitution and gambling. (That might be a contradiction in itself, as it must surprise many observers that these activities are not already legal in Thailand.) At the same time, Thailand engaged in an extremely bloody war against drugs in 2003, one that cost more than 2,500 lives. Now, the NY Times reports (from last Friday, registration required) that Bangkok nightlife is being increasingly suppressed. (Vice Squad thanks an intrepid University of Chicago student for pointing us to the Times article.) And the moves in this direction are politically popular (though it isn't unusual for policies that crimp other people's fun to be popular.) Here's an excerpt from the Times story:

"On March 1, most nightclubs, bars and discos will have their closing times moved back to midnight, one of the most stringent curfews in Asia. After March 29, under another new regulation, all youngsters under 18 will have to be off the streets by 10 p.m. unless they are with their parents.

This month the Interior Ministry announced a 100-fold increase in license fees that, if put into effect, is sure to put scores of restaurants, ballrooms, massage parlors and other entertainment places out of business.

With Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra intimidating the press; packing the courts, the police and the military; and all but eliminating political opposition, and with social order added to the mix, Thailand could begin to be a somewhat different place."

Labels: dancing, gambling, licensing, prostitution, teens, Thailand

 
One of the Stupidest "Zero Tolerance" Laws on the Books
- posted by Nikkie @ 1:23 PM

Comes to us from Michigan. As of fall of 2003, drivers with any trace of marijuana or Schedule 1 drugs in their systems are subject to the same fines and penalties as drunken drivers, even if they show no signs of impairment. Do law makers know that marijuana can stay in the blood stream for up to a month? I don't think anyone would argue that someone who had a puff of some marijuana three weeks ago is unfit to drive a car today. However, this is the type of unreasonable and downright idiotic laws we've come to expect from state and federal legislators on drug policy.

There is no thought, nor any rationale behind a law like this. It's just another way for the state to punish our friends and neighbors for using a substance it doesn't like. The description of this law by the way is part of a larger, grating article in the Flint Journal. The article is a shoddy summary of inaccurate conclusions about "research" on marijuana, ranging from its "addictive" effects to its potency, to the 'ol "four joints equals a pack of cigarettes" myth. Check out NORML's web site for a more educated, responsible, and accurate assessment of the harms and benefits of marijuana use.

Labels: driving, marijuana, zero tolerance

 
Teddy Bear Named as Accomplice in Heroin Operation
- posted by Nikkie @ 1:10 PM

The Chicago Sun-Times reports today that as a suspect's car was being impounded for speeding in a school zone (you can get your car impounded for speeding?!), his girlfriend approached the scene and asked to retrieve some clothing and a teddy bear from the car.

One of the arresting officers thought the teddy bear seemed a little heavy and bulky. Upon further examination, 28 bags of heroin were found inside the bear. Because the girlfriend didn't actually take possession of the bear, and claimed that she didn't know what was inside of it, she was not arrested.

Labels: Chicago, heroin, policing