Hungary Formalizes Prostitution
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:49 PM

Some elements of the sex trade (not including pimping or brothels) have been legal in Hungary since 1999, but eliminating the threat of arrest does not put prostitution on a par with other forms of self-employment. For instance, prostitutes could not take part in Hungary's social security system or provide documentation to potential lenders about their income source. This is changing, however, as Hungary has begun to issue entrepreneurial permits to prostitutes. "The permits allow prostitutes to give receipts to customers and become part of the legal economy by paying taxes and making social security contributions, said Agnes Foldi, head of the Hungarian Prostitutes' Interest Protection Association." Though the government is issuing the permits, it is not keeping a list of the names of permit holders; any central registry, of uncertain privacy, would dissuade many sex workers from applying for a permit.

Hungary's tax authorities also have been offering financial planning and accounting advice for sex workers -- counseling for financial matters and for drug and alcohol abuse should more generally be part of desirable prostitution regulations, in my opinion.

Labels: Europe, licensing, prostitution, taxes

 
Beer and Concentration...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:55 PM

...not always known for being travelling companions. But the concentration referred to is that of the beer industry itself. How much of the overall beer market is accounted for by the largest beer companies? It turns out that the answer to that question differs quite a bit between the US and Germany. I learned about it from an article by William James Adams, "Beer in Germany and the United States," published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives in Winter, 2006. In Germany in 2000, the top three beer manufacturers accounted for 24 percent of domestic beer shipments; in the US, alternatively, the top three producers that year accounted for 88 percent of domestic output. While craft beers have been on the rise in the States, they remain quite small (about 3.2 percent) in terms of the overall beer market; meanwhile, substantial regional breweries have been more-or-less eliminated in the US, but not in Germany. In the US, Anheuser-Busch produces a majority of the domestic beer output; in Germany, the largest producer accounts for only some 17 percent of output.

The Adams article tries to explain the difference in industry concentration. The overall story is fairly complex, but one of the big factors pushing towards concentration in the US market is an unusual economy of scale: it is not that average costs of production per se fall as brewery size increases, but rather, marketing becomes more effective. National television advertising was what propelled Anheuser-Busch and a few other large companies ahead of the regional breweries, which eventually succumbed.

But wait, don't they have TV in Germany, too? Well, yes, but the German TV market was arranged in such a way prior to 1990 that advertising on commercial television was not all that attractive and did not offer much of an advantage to national producers. The TV market has changed a lot since then, providing more of an advantage to national marketers, and concentration in the German beer market has been rising of late.

Adams doesn't mention it, but the high concentration within US brewing probably eases the implementation of self-regulation. Here (8-page pdf) is the Beer Institute's Advertising and Marketing Code. I am troubled by one element of the code, that "Beer advertising and marketing materials should not disparage competing beers." Could there be an antitrust problem there?

The Big-3 US brewers, plus many others, are members of the Beer Institute; I don't believe that Pabst, the fourth largest brewer, is a member, however.

Labels: alcohol, Europe, marketing

 
Smoking Bans and Dutch Coffee Shops
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:29 PM

Marijuana sales for recreational use are illegal in the Netherlands, like everywhere else (April 20, 2004), but they are tolerated, as is possession and consumption, in some 700 "coffee shops". But what happens when a public smoking ban, of the broad type that applies to bars and restaurants, comes into effect? Well, presumably the ban will apply only to tobacco smoking, so that marijuana smoking in the coffee shops will still be allowed. This is not to say that the shops will not be affected by a tobacco smoking ban -- it turns out, according to this linked story, that many customers (though not visiting Americans) like to mix their mj with tobacco when consuming it, and these customers might have to find a different means of consumption, or do their smoking at home. Americans, at least in the Amsterdam shop featured in the article that is owned by a "local conservative politician," prefer to use some sort of vaporizing mechanism that collects the smoke in a "balloon," from which it is then inhaled. In a reversal of what one might think is the usual European view, the owner/politician seems to appreciate a significant American presence: 'On good days, when the shop is full of Americans, we sell 100 or 200 of these balloons.'

Thanks to Alcohol and Drugs History Society for the pointer.

Labels: Europe, marijuana, Netherlands, smoking ban

 
Europe v. US Drug Arrests, 2003
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:56 PM

It is a happy coincidence that 5 major European countries -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain -- in combination, have about the same population as the US: around 300 million people. In 2003, the US arrested some 1,678,192 people for "drug abuse violations." Reported drug law offenses for 2003 in the 5 European countries: about 719,000.

Labels: arrests, drugs, Europe

 
Cheaper by the Twelve-Pack? Not in Finland
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:57 PM

The Finnish Parliament has adopted some new controls on alcohol labelling and marketing, including a measure prohibiting volume discounts. It cannot be cheaper, on a per-beer basis, to buy a 12-pack than to buy a single beer, and Finnish restaurants cannot sell bottles of wine more cheaply than the equivalent per-glass price. It is possible that this new law will serve to reduce the price of a glass of wine in restaurants, of course.

Labels: alcohol, Europe, Finland, marketing

 
Vienna Vice
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:07 PM

I am in Vienna, and I wanted to share one vice vignette. You know that Ferris Wheel that played a role in the movie The Third Man? Well, as you approach the Wheel from the tramstop or subway station, you walk along a path in a sort of park-like setting. There are a series of warning signs that dot the side of the path. The signs are in some foreign tongue, but fortunately they come complete with an English version for language-limited folks like me. What is the danger being warned of? Just what you would expect, of course: illegal gambling. Really. The signs say "Beware of Illegal Gambling." I have been quite wary of wayward dice ever since I read the warnings. (I suspect that, when the weather is nice -- not like today, that is -- some three-card monte cons are conducted along the path.) In an unrelated note, near the Ferris Wheel is a spherical home that belongs to its own Republic -- it is not part of Austria, apparently. I will endeavour to learn more. Not sure that it takes the same lax view of soft drugs for which Copenhagen's 'free city' of Christiania is famous. [Update: It's the Republic of Kugelmugel, with one citizen, who is, like many revolutionaries, a tax protestor, it seems.]

Labels: Europe, gambling

 
Italian Cigarette Sales Update
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:01 AM

In January, Italy introduced a public smoking ban. Shortly thereafter, cigarette sales were claimed to have fallen by 19%, though Vice Squad, displaying its usual reserve, was suspicious of the depth of the decline. A recent update puts the sales decline at a more reasonable 9%. Still, as the linked article notes, if this holds up throughout the year, Italian cigarette sales will be at their lowest level for the past thirty years.

Labels: Europe, smoking ban

 
Prostitution in Germany
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:33 PM

Wednesday'’s Christian Science Monitor brings an update on the situation with legal prostitution in Germany. The article notes that some of the recent concern with legal prostitution was sparked by the hyped-but-untrue story of a woman whose unemployment benefits were ended because of her refusal to take a job as a prostitute. But in any case, legality has been far from a panacea; for one, many prostitutes are not all that interested in becoming taxed and regulated, and others are not in the country legally. Though I favor some forms of legal prostitution, in general I would say that in those places where it exists, it has not been very successful at limiting illicit prostitution.

Nevertheless, the legal trade is pretty extensive in Germany:

An estimated 400,000 prostitutes work in Germany, and 1.2 million customers are said to use their services daily. Revenues are estimated at 6 billion euros every year - equivalent to those of companies like Porsche and Adidas...

In Stuttgart, where 2,700 prostitutes are registered, brothels now pay 15 euros or 25 euros per day, per prostitute, to financial authorities. The city of Cologne receives roughly 700,000 euros per month from the business. In Dortmund, owners of sex establishments have been creating contracts with prostitutes that offer benefits.

Labels: Europe, prostitution

 
Irish Public Smoking Ban at One Year
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:44 PM

Co-blogger Michael was on the story one year ago when Ireland introduced its public smoking ban, the most notable feature of which was a ban on smoking inside pubs. We have been following the ban since, most recently by recounting some ban "winners", such as outdoor heater manufacturers. Today, via Reuters, we get a summary of conditions one year after the ban went into effect. The summary is fairly upbeat, focusing on the health benefits and widespread compliance -- it wasn't universal compliance! -- but not neglecting to mention the fall in bar revenues.

Labels: Europe, smoking ban

 
Saturday morning reading
- posted by Michael @ 10:36 AM

What would a Saturday morning be without some exciting drug-related tidbits? None of the information below is really “new news,” but by some coincidence I learned it all within the last 2 hours.

1. First I found out that the war on drugs must have been finally won, at least in Europe. A Russian-language news site reported that the Austrian police has recently confiscated the largest shipment of cocaine in the country’s history. The cocaine weighed in at 143 kilos and, according to the Austrian police, it was high quality stuff. The street price is estimated to be more than 100 mln. euros. The interesting thing to me was that the shipment apparently originated in Colombia and traveled via the Bahamas, the US, and France. I have always wondered why these things sometimes travel in such a roundabout way, including through the countries where they are supposed to be consumed, before ending up in some location from which they have to travel back to those final consumption countries. I am sure there are rational explanations and I can even guess what they are. But it would be interesting to know the details. Incidentally, Austria is apparently far behind the US in its war on drugs. The same story reported that the previous shipment handled by the same drug ring was much bigger (277 kilos) and was confiscated in South Carolina, apparently without setting any records.

2. The News of the Weird column for January 9, 2005 reports about a Dutch retirement home in Rotterdam that specializes on serving the “incorrigible heroin addicts.” Apparently it has a long waiting list. I do not know whether the retirement home seeks to provide rehabilitation services, but it appears it does not. Also, it looks like the police are not interested in raiding it. Wouldn’t it be nice indeed if at least the retired people who can afford it could enjoy whatever drugs they want to consume in the privacy of their homes? But perhaps they already do in some more enlightened countries. BTW, this is not really a selfish wish. My drugs of choice are alcohol and caffeine. I am already able to consume them in the privacy of my home.
3. And here is my favorite item from the same News of the Weird column. In Salt Lake City late last year, federal judge Paul G. Cassell was forced by the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines to sentence a 25-year-old small-quantity marijuana dealer to 55 years in prison. The sentence was so harsh because the dealer had a gun on him during two of the transactions. Two hours before that, Judge Cassell sentenced a man to 22 years in prison for killing an elderly woman by beating her to death with a log. The latter crime was not subject to the mandatory minimum guidelines. This is weird indeed.

Labels: addiction, cocaine, drugs, Europe, marijuana, Netherlands, sentencing, treatment

 
Zero Tolerance for Driving Under the Influence
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:12 PM

Since August, the blood alcohol content that will lead to a per se violation of driving while intoxicated laws in Croatia is any positive number. You'd better register .00, or you are a drunk driver. This means that you cannot safely have a glass of wine at dinner, if you will be driving home later. The law is likely to be relaxed, however:

The Croatian government is considering amendments to its new law on drinking and driving, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader recently confirmed. The measure, introduced in August, reduced the blood alcohol content limit for drivers from 0.05 per cent to zero. It has triggered significant opposition from restaurant and hotel owners, who say it is hurting business, as well as from Catholic priests, who argue that they are now effectively barred from traveling between churches to celebrate Mass.

The priests had asked to be exempted before the law went into effect, but their prayers, er, requests, went for naught.

Labels: alcohol, driving, Europe, zero tolerance

 
Crimes of Munich's Oktoberfest
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:13 PM

(1) So far, security officials have seized 92,000 glasses that visitors have tried to heist as souvenirs.

(2) Mulled wine is being served (as a temporary measure), due to cold temperatures putting folks off of the main draw! Well, the cold is not putting too many folks off. After one week of the two-week event, the count stood at 1,800 liters of mulled wine, versus, uh, 2.3 million liters of beer. (So I guess a few Oktoberfest customers did not attempt to steal their glasses -- or didn't get caught.)

Both crime reports come from this Reuters article.

Labels: alcohol, Europe

 
On the Limits to Recreation in Rural Latvia
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:43 PM

Well, one could always enjoy a drink, perhaps.

Labels: alcohol, Europe

 
Priests Ask For Right to Drink and Drive
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:11 PM

Vice policy can make for strange political alliances, as when educators (hoping for improved state funding) lobby along with gambling interests for increased legal gambling. In Croatia, the government is adopting a zero tolerance policy towards drinking and driving. In late August, the current blood alcohol content per se standard of .05 percent will be reduced to any positive amount; i.e., even a BAC of .01 would be enough to convict someone of impaired driving, which carries a heavy fine. But Croatian priests have to imbibe wine at mass, and some priests conduct multiple masses a day, driving between the churches. So priests are asking to be exempted from the zero tolerance rule.

For some reason, the Croatian story reminds me of the New Zealand binge tax.

Labels: alcohol, driving, Europe, zero tolerance

 
Olympic Torch Leads to Cannabis Destruction
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:14 PM

You never know when some crazy person is going to try to attack an Olympic torchbearer, so you have to provide security. In Crete, the police had a helicopter shadowing the torch, and it's a good thing, too. Eagle-eyed chopper-borne police spotted three fields of cannabis, leading to the destruction of 6,500 marijuana plants. (Chicago Trib article here, registration required; photo of some of the plants here.)

I used to think that it would be possible to track the Goodyear blimp via reports of automobile rear-end collisions; will it be possible to track the path of the Olympic torch through cannabis seizure statistics?

[Update: Last One Speaks beat us to the torch tale.]

Labels: Europe, marijuana

 
An aborted revolt against the Irish smoking ban
- posted by Michael @ 8:34 PM

As Vice Squad reported sometime ago, in late March, Ireland became the first country in the world to prohibit smoking in all public buildings including pubs and restaurants. A small revolt against the ban began last Monday (see here and here -- subscription required). A Galway pub, Fibber Magees, decided to let their customers smoke at the upstairs tables. This was the first public defiance of the law. While the ban appears to enjoy strong support among the general population, this support is far from universal. The word about the rebellion spread quickly and on Tuesday night the upstairs of the pub was packed with smokers. The Health Minister Michael Martin promised quick punishment. According to the Irish law, the patrons caught smoking could be fined up to $3,700. The pub owners could face a $3,700 fine per each customer who violates the ban. The Fibber Magees' owners insist, however, that without letting their customers smoke, they could not survive anyway, because their business was off two thirds since the imposition of the ban. For a short while it looked as though some other pubs were going to join in on the revolt, but by Thursday the rebellion appeared to be over. Fibber Magees was closed by its owners until further notice. The owners promised to pursue their opposition to the ban “through lawful means.” It looks unlikely though that any effort to sue the government would be successful. Meanwhile, the government representatives said that they were preparing to both prosecute the customers who smoked in Fibber Magees on Wednesday night and petition the Irish High Court to punish the owners unless the latter promised to stop violating the law.

For the time being, the anti-smoking law has won in Ireland. It is less obvious that good sense has been victorious too. The apparent popular support of the smoking ban suggests that most people in Ireland either do not smoke or wish they didn’t. It does not necessarily imply that the ban itself is a reasonable public policy that enhances social welfare. Vice Squad has had lots of posts on smoking bans. Here is one useful general discussion.

Labels: Europe, smoking ban

 
Platzspitz
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:04 PM

Greetings from Zurich. What does a vice policy researcher do upon arriving in Zurich for the first time? No, not what you are thinking -- such an individual heads to the Platzspitz. That`s a park next to the main railway terminal, and in the early 1990s, it was the site of an amazing experiment: Needle Park. In Needle Park, small-scale sales of drugs, even "hard drugs" such as heroin, were tolerated. Users could shoot up without fear of the police in the Platzspitz, and health facilities were provided to promote safe use and prevent accidental overdose. Though with respect to some health measures and even some overall crime outcomes, Platzspitz could be said to have been a success, it was a political failure, and was shut down. One of the problems was that it was an unique environment, so it attracted users not just from Zurich but from all over Switzerland and beyond. Platzspitz, then, in part serves as a reminder that what constitutes a desirable vice policy very much depends upon the vice policies that other jurisdictions pursue.

Another lesson that I draw from today`s visit is that when setting up an open air safe shooting gallery, you might not want to use some of the best real estate in your city.

Labels: Europe, harm reduction, recreational drug use

 
Pilotless Plane Nabs Pot Smokers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:53 PM

A generous reader brought Vice Squad's attention to this story of two Swiss pot smokers being identified by an infrared camera on a spy drone aircraft. I thought at first that it must be a hoax, but that appears not to be the case, alas:

Zealous Swiss soldiers called the police when the infra-red camera of a pilotless spy aircraft they were testing showed an image of two civilians smoking cannabis, a newspaper said on Sunday, adding that the incident had prompted a protest in the country's parliament.
The newspaper Le Matin Dimanche said police turned out with screaming sirens and arrested the smokers after they were tipped off to the incident near the central city of Lucerne late last month.

Not surprisingly, the Swiss Defense Minister defended the actions of the soldiers who alerted the cops. More surprising and even scary, to the reader who e-mailed about the story as well as to me, is the extent to which the Defense Minister justified all behavior by informants: "'When one is serving one's country, one is also a citizen, and a citizen has a duty to denounce whatever seems abnormal,' he told parliament..." Hmmm, I see something abnormal more-or-less continuously. ("Hello officer, Jim here, just wanted to let you know that the University's e-mail system seemed to work fine during finals' week; also, I did my laundry today, and none of my clothes were ruined.")

In a further blow to Swiss cannabis consumers, Parliament voted against decriminalizing marijuana and hashish on Monday. Sounds like they'll be needing a lot more drones: "With an estimated half a million regular or occasional cannabis users -- many of whom smoke publicly in parks, clubs or on ski lifts -- in a nation of 7.3 million people, campaigners say it is time for the law to catch up with reality."

Labels: Europe, marijuana, policing

 
Fifty-Plus Days of Smoke-Free Irish Pubs
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:44 PM

Friend of Vice Squad Will Pyle helps our cause even while he engages in survey work in Russia. Will brings our attention to this Slate article talking about the effects of the public smoking ban that went into effect in Ireland not quite two months ago. There's the usual crowding just outside the door -- an area now marked by extensive cigarette butt litter -- which at least has provided opportunities for flirting. Occasionally someone who claims to be stepping outside for a smoke skips his check. Compliance with the smoking ban is fairly high, it seems, though far from perfect. Here's a brief excerpt from the linked Slate article:

Wizened old men who look like they grew up with a Guinness in one hand and a toitini in the other huddle forlornly in dark pub doorways for a furtive puff as their pints go flat at the bar. Pubs where smoke was previously a three-dimensional wallpaper now boast (almost) Everest-clear air, allowing the various aromas that the Marlboro Man and friends obscured—vomit, urine, yesterday's lunch special, spilled Smithwick's Irish Ale—to reek pungently in their full glory.

Labels: Europe, smoking ban

 
Nineteenth Hole Threatened
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:02 PM

A leading golf course in Ireland, Dublin's Portmarnock Golf Club, has a policy of not admitting women as members. (It has an exception for women who happen to be the President of Ireland.) But Ireland's Equal Status Act of 2000 might make such a membership policy illegal -- at least that is the view of the District Court judge who ruled against Portmarnock in March. Today, the same judge imposed the punishment: Portmarnock must forego its liquor license for one week, so the serving of alcohol to members will have to cease during that time. The decision awaits appeal. As the thought of the tedium of golfing on a cold, windy course without the use of alcohol is horrifying, Vice Squad expects that Portmarnock will quickly see the wisdom of a non-discriminatory membership policy. [Wouldn't the golf be tedious in any case? -Ed.]

Labels: alcohol, Europe