Self-Exclusion
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:46 PM

Just a few days ago I called for the US military to set up a self-exclusion system for the slot machines that it operates on some of its foreign bases. (No word back yet -- apparently they have higher priorities.) But this whole self-exclusion thing is really catching on. Check out the fine article (available from this page after free registration) in the current Milken Institute Review. The author notes -- oh, wait, I am the author. I note that self-exclusion systems typically combine two features, physical unavailability and reward diminution. In the case of casinos, the physical unavailability is supposed to come about when the casino bouncers prevent you from entering their fine establishment, or even have you charged with trespassing (as happens in some jurisdictions) when you try to evade your voluntarily chosen personal ban. Reward diminution occurs when you find, once you have managed to slip past security, that you will not be allowed to collect large jackpots. I don't think that self-exclusion systems currently work all that well in US casinos -- the system is better in the Netherlands -- but I think the general notion of self-exclusion holds significant potential. In particular, I think that when the currently illegal drugs are legalized, some sort of self-exclusion system -- perhaps licenses for drug users, and a chosen purchase limit -- will (and generally should) be part of the mix.

The Milken Institute Review article starts off with a delightful anecdote (by golly, it is delightful) about famed poet and opium addict Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who tried (unsuccessfully) to set up his own self-exclusion system by hiring goons to bar his entrance into pharmacies. (At the time in the UK, opium was legally available without a prescription.) When Coleridge really wanted opium, however, he would fire his agents on the spot, leaving them befuddled as to whether to obey the previous or the current Coleridge.

It is embarrassing when you make an error on the second page of a long publication. How about the second word? Somehow in the relating of this delightful anecdote, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was rendered, in large font, as Samuel Tyler Coleridge. Sigh. [Update: the wonderful folks at the Milken Institute Review corrected the typo, without bidding!]

Vice Squad has spoken about self-exclusion occasionally in the past, and hopes to speak more in the future -- assuming physical inaccessibility and reward diminution do not kick in.

Labels: Britain, gambling, licensing, Netherlands, opium, robustness, self-exclusion

 
A Euro 2000 Hooliganism Tale
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:30 PM

It has been a while since Vice Squad drew upon Paying the Tab, Phil Cook's alcohol control monograph. On page 151, Phil recounts the story of the Euro 2000 soccer tournament, which was hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands. The Dutch city of Eindhoven elected to combat British soccer hooliganism by reducing the alcohol content of beer sold during the tournament ("Festival Beer") to 2.5 percent, about half or less of the standard beer alcohol content. (Phil doesn't mention it, but Eindhoven also chose to further liberalize the rules surrounding cannabis, hoping to entice visiting soccer tourists out of the bars and into the coffee shops.) At any rate, the low-alcohol gambit seemed to work, as the England supporters were fairly well-behaved in the Netherlands, especially relative to their comportment in Belgium. Less successful was an attempt in Rome this year to ban alcohol sales for 24-hours around an important football match involving Manchester United; a cannabis tolerance in Portugal for Euro 2004 worked out fine, it seems -- the main violence around the tournament emanated not from the host country, but from a Portuguese-owned pub in England.

Labels: alcohol, Cook, marijuana, Netherlands, soccer

 
Legal Sales of Magic Mushrooms Threatened in the Netherlands
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:44 PM

Tourists have been coming to Amsterdam, ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms, and ending up in the hospital, with some frequency. The national government is considering a prohibition on sales, but the mayor of Amsterdam is being more creative. He has proposed a three-day waiting period between the time you order the mushrooms and when you can pick them up. This would put a barrier in the way of mushroom overconsumption by the (often British) weekend tourists, while maintaining fungi availability to the sensible Dutch. The Times has the story.

Labels: mushrooms, Netherlands, robustness

 
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

 
If You Patronize an Illegal Brothel During a Raid...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:37 AM

...make sure that you do so when there is a sheriff and undersheriff also hanging about. Part of the culmination of a two-year investigation, the raid took place just west of the Las Vegas strip at about 9:30 on Saturday night. "No customers or suspected customers were arrested." Among those not arrested were the Sheriff and Undersheriff of San Mateo County, California, which is a bit south of San Francisco. The details are a little hard to discern from the linked story, but apparently at least one of the two men, and possibly both, were shocked, shocked, to learn that more than massages might be on offer at the raided establishment. If you think that the law enforcers received special treatment from the raiding parties, well, we are assured that that is not the case.

OK, I admit it, I have never heard of an "undersheriff" before. But it has quickly become my favorite law enforcement rank.

In all seriousness, in places where prostitution is legal and regulated, it generally is not a matter of public concern if a law enforcement officer (including an undersheriff) is in the vicinity when off-duty. And legality also makes it easier to combat coercion and trafficking of women.

Speaking of jurisdictions with legal prostitution, in the Netherlands, the number of sex businesses has declined by sixteen percent. One explanation offered for the phenomenon in the linked story is that versions of web-based sex are proving to be effective competitors to the non-virtual businesses.

Labels: Las Vegas, Netherlands, prostitution

 
Open House of (Ill?) Repute
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:55 PM

Last year, some commercial elements of Amsterdam's Red Light district held an open house. The district had come under some political attack -- a constant threat to legal or legally-tolerated vice -- and the open house was one attempt to improve public relations. The attacks have continued, in part because of reports of outright illegal behavior taking place in the district. So the district held an encore performance, another open house, on Saturday. "The open house concluded with the unveiling of a statue depicting an unknown sex worker and intended to honour those employed in the industry around the world, including those without the same protection found in the Netherlands, where prostitution is legal."

Labels: Netherlands, prostitution

 
Cannabis Complementarities
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:27 PM

Yesterday Vice Squad mentioned (twice) substitutability (or complementarity) between alcohol and tobacco. Today we look at some new evidence concerning the demand relationships among cannabis, alcohol and cigarettes. The evidence comes from a recent working paper by Jan C. van Ours, "Cannabis Use When It's Legal." As the title suggests, the paper is based on data from Amsterdam, although even there, cannabis remains officially illegal, though sales in offically recognized coffee houses are regulated and tolerated. The main issues that van Ours examines are versions of the gateway theory: does initiation of alcohol or cigarette use lead to more cannabis use, and vice versa? The result, using survey data from 1994, 1997, and 2001, is that cannabis use reduces the initiation of alcohol use -- that is, alcohol and cannabis are intertemporal substitutes -- while tobacco use increases the initiation of cannabis consumption. In this sense, tobacco consumption is a gateway to marijuana use, but marijuana use dissuades drinking. Approximately 5% of the female respondents and 10% of the male respondents are current users of the entire drug trio -- alcohol, tobacco and cannabis -- while fewer than 2% of the respondents have consistently abstained.

Labels: alcohol, marijuana, Netherlands

 
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

 
Marijuana Prices
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:34 PM

A couple of days ago I mentioned that "the black market price of pot in the US is typically lower than the price in the quasi-legal coffee shops in the Netherlands." I was basing this claim on a rather vague memory of having read this in the past; probably my main source was a 1997 (volume 278, pages 47-52) article in Science by Robert MacCoun and Peter Reuter, "Interpreting Dutch Cannabis Policy: Reasoning by Analogy in the Legalization Debate." MacCoun and Reuter don't say that Dutch prices are lower, however; rather, they say "Gram prices [in Dutch coffee shops] are 5 to 25 guilders ($2.50 to $12.50) compared with U.S. figures of $1.50 to $15.00" (footnote omitted). See also this August, 2003 paper (16 page pdf) by Jeffrey Miron, which suggests US cannabis prices are less than or equal to Dutch prices. A Vice Squad reader, though, makes the point that in quality-adjusted terms, Dutch coffee house prices are lower than in the US, and that furthermore, much low-quality marijuana that trades in the US would not find a ready market in the Netherlands.

Labels: marijuana, Netherlands

 
Amsterdam and the Price of Legal v. Quasi-Legal Pot
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:16 PM

Last year, the Dutch made pot available in pharmacies to patients with prescriptions. Why would these patients need to go to a pharmacy, one might wonder, when pot is available openly in coffee shops throughout the country? Well, one argument was that many of the patients were not all that comfortable going to coffee shops, or that, for whatever reason, pharmacy provision would be an improvement.

But it turns out that for most patients, it seems, the pharmacy pot is not making the grade. Today's Chicago Tribune has this (AP) article with the details. In the Dutch case, the speculation is that the problem is not so much low quality -- that's been a concern with government pot in Canada -- as it is high price (even though insurance should cover much of the cost for many patients):

The government sells two varieties ranging from about $10 to $12 a gram--enough for up to four joints. Coffee shops sell it for as little as $5 a gram, with only the highest-quality pot fetching prices comparable to the government's.

Why is the price of legal pot so much higher than that of quasi-legal pot? I don't know, but it does remind me of the work of Boston University economist Jeffrey Miron. Miron tried to estimate how much cocaine and heroin would sell for in the absence of prohibition. He used various methods, including looking at the current legal market for medical cocaine and heroin (heroin is not part of the legal US pharmacopoeia but it is legal elsewhere). Miron came up with numbers for the price of legal cocaine that suggest that the current prohibition raises prices maybe less than you might think: perhaps by a factor of 2 to 4 for cocaine, and a factor of 6 to 18 for heroin. I particularly like the part of Miron's paper where he looks at how expensive the cup of coffee at your local Starbucks is in comparison to the "farmgate" price of the coffee beans that go into it. It's some 30 times more expensive, unless we're talking espresso, which is more like 130 times more expensive.

Incidentally, the black market price of pot in the US is typically lower than the price in the quasi-legal coffee shops in the Netherlands. Of course, much of the manufacturing and wholesale market for cannabis in the Netherlands remains effectively criminalized.

Labels: marijuana, Netherlands

 
Amsterdam Cracks Down on Prostitution
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:40 PM

Of course, what is left after the crackdown is still a lot more tolerant than what we have in the good ol' US of A. Amsterdam's experiment of toleration zones for street prostitution went by the boards at the end of 2003. Window prostitution in the red light district is still legit, however, as are brothels. The article, just published in Expatica, was written at the end of 2003, but it still provides a pretty good overview of some of the problems (and gains) associated with the streetwalking tolerance zones. (There's also this related story on the prostitution-related downfall of an Amsterdam alderman.) The loyal Vice Squad reader will recall Belle de Jour's criticism of streetwalking tolerance zones. Many cities in Britain are considering adopting prostitution tolerance zones; in Nottingham, the police authority chairman supports such designated zones, outside of the city.

The D'Alliance points to another Expatica vice story, this one about trying to crackdown on French drug tourists in Antwerp, a Belgian port city even more accessible than Rotterdam from France.

Labels: Netherlands, prostitution

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

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

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

Labels: Netherlands, prostitution, South Dakota

 
Absinthe in the Netherlands
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:20 PM

The new bans (one actual, one intended) on the alcohol vaporizer caused Vice Squad to rhapsodize about the frequency with which vice-related bans are adopted. But vice laws swing both ways, and sometimes bans come to an end. In March, we noted that Switzerland was intending to end its 96-year old ban on the opaline alcohol beverage absinthe. Last week, Peaktalk passed along the story of how an Amsterdam Court ruling overturned the Dutch ban on absinthe, which dates "only" to 1909.

The court's rationale is that European Union regulations on absinthe have superseded the Dutch ban. And while I am glad to see the ban end, I do not like the fact that it is intra-EU free trade considerations that are paving the way for this liberalization, as well as making high-alcohol-taxes in Sweden and Finland untenable. Alcohol is not an ordinary commodity, and I am concerned that tying its regulation to standard liberal approaches to free trade (or free speech) threatens both the legality of alcohol and our commitments to free trade or free speech more generally. But that is a discussion for another time.

For now, just want to mention that I recently read The Book of Absinthe: A Cultural History, by Phil Baker. It was a fun read, covering primarily fin de siecle Paris and London, with characters like Ernest Dowson, Oscar Wilde, and Paul Verlaine. The book opens (page 3) by explaining how the Swiss absinthe ban was motivated by the horrific 1905 murders of a pregnant woman and her two young daughters by her husband. The murderer was a "thoroughgoing alcoholic," who had an extraordinary amount to drink both the day before and day of the murders. His two absinthes were literally a drop in the bucket of his imbibing, but a petition to ban absinthe was drawn up in the wake of the murders, and eventually succeeded -- and it lasted for nearly 100 years.

Labels: absinthe, EU, free trade, Netherlands

 
Comparative Prostitution News
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 1:29 PM

First, from Cudahy (a southern suburb of Milwaukee), Wisconsin: "Cudahy police targeted prostitution in the city after receiving complaints of sex acts in the hallway of a south side apartment building, where they arrested 11 women and one man during an undercover sting operation."

Second, from Vermont: "Eight women are in custody Friday on immigration violations after police broke up what they say was a prostitution ring being run out of Champlain Valley spas."

Third, from East Moline, Illinois: "Four women were arrested this week in a prostitution sting operation after several females were seen on East Moline's 15th Avenue, whistling at passing cars and trying to solicit customers."

And finally, from the Netherlands:

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Dutch government backs plans for "seals of quality" for well-run brothels and standard contracts for prostitutes, as well as more support for those who want to leave the world's oldest profession, it said on Friday.
The Dutch cabinet said it supported the initiative from the prostitution industry to further improve supervision four years after the Netherlands lifted a ban on brothels to improve regulation of the business and fight trafficking in women.

"The sector has said it wants to develop a seal of quality to improve its image," the cabinet said in a statement. "This seal could be given to prostitution firms, which ... comply with criteria in areas such as safety, health and integrity.

They just don't seem to be arresting enough women in the Netherlands.

Labels: Netherlands, Prohibition, prostitution

 
Dutch Cannabis Cafes Victimized By Protectionism
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:15 PM

A few European Union nations are not happy that some of their citizens
find Dutch drug enforcement policies more to their liking than they find
the homegrown policies. The offended nations haven't been able to force
the Dutch to close their "coffee shops" -- cafes where sale and
consumption of small amounts of marijuana are tolerated (officially,
sale and possession of pot remains illegal in the Netherlands). But they
have succeeded, it seems, in making these cafes off-limits to tourists,
according to this UPI article passed along by a (mythical?) Vice Squad
friend who wishes to remain anonymous. Fans of Brussels will be sorry
to learn that for now, at least, a similar constraint is not being imposed
on Holland's legal brothels.

Vice Squad has touched upon vice tourism recently, here. [Update: My understanding is that the restrictions against outsiders were not imposed.]

Labels: EU, marijuana, Netherlands

 
Adult/Teen Relationships
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 1:22 PM

Yesterday Vice Squad was in attendance at a talk by Judith Levine, author
of the highly controversial book Harmful to Minors. The talk was entitled "Crimes
of Passion: Statutory Rape, Female Desire, and the Ambiguities of Consent."
I'll try to provide some of the flavor of the talk below, though no one
should fully rely upon my memory and notes. (I also left a few minutes,
I guess, before the Q&A portion came to an end.)

Ms. Levine told the (true) story of a love affair between a 20-year-old
young man and a 13-year-old girl. Her parents did all that they could to
disrupt or destroy the affair, it seems, including taking legal action. The
young couple was persistent, however, and eventually they ran off together.
After a few weeks, they were spotted, and the man was later sentenced to
12 to 24 years in prison, though the girl emphasized that their relationship
was consensual, and she did not feel that any crime at all had been committed.

It seemed to me that Ms. Levine presented this case as if it represented a
miscarriage of justice. I would characterize her main point as involving the
word "ambiguities" in her title: real relationships, including adult/teen
ones, involve ambiguities, whereas the statutory law brooks no ambiguity. The
impression that I got was that Ms. Levine thinks that the criminal law, at
least, is not the appropriate tool for societal regulation of
adult/young teen relationships. She spoke approvingly of the Dutch approach.
Apparently, in the Netherlands, adults can have legal consensual relationships
with 12 to 16-year olds, as long as the adult is not in some sort of power
relationship with the youth (e.g., teacher, priest). There is a state-supported
system of some type (notes and memory are sketchy here) that provides a place
for the youngsters to go if they begin to feel uncomfortable or worse with
the relationship (and they can involve their parents). But the parents of
the youth cannot ask the state to interfere just because they disapprove.
Once the situation has been brought to the attention of the state by the
young person, apparently some sort of settlement is sought, in a negotiation
that involves the adult member of the couple. That is, the Netherlands seems to
keep the criminal law pretty much on the sideline when it comes to regulating
consensual relationships between adults and 12 to 16-year-old kids.

Should the US consider a Netherlands-style approach? Levine emphasized that
the US and the Netherlands are so different that being 12-years old means
something quite different in the two countries; nevertheless, she seemed
to favor the Netherlands approach. To this "conclusion", I guess I would have
to render the Scottish verdict of "not proven," at least on the basis of the
Levine talk alone. That there is ambiguity within relationships and that
the criminal justice system sometimes errs in dealing with that ambiguity seems
more-or-less certain to me. But whether the parents of a 13-year old girl,
distraught over her relationship, say, with a 50-year old man, should
have no standing to involve the state to preclude the relationship -- well,
there I am far from convinced.

Update, November 1, 2003: As is becoming the custom, Vice Squad's ramblings
about adult/child sexual relationships were preceded and superseded by
Will Baude at Crescat Sententia; see here and here. Will (in the second of the
linked posts) proposes eliminating a bright-line statutory rape law with "a rule
of legal presumption. Say, perhaps, that children are presumed not to be able
to consent to sexual intercourse with somebody much older or more powerful
than they, but that this presumption is rebuttable (by, for example, combined
testimony of the child and the parent, or perhaps a psychiatrist's examination,
or . . .). Then limit this "rebuttable presumption range" and maintain some
absolute lower bound, whether that's 12, 14, or something else." A similar
suggestion was made by an astute audience member at the Levine talk;
Ms. Levine, it seemed to me, was not very receptive to the proposal:
if anything, she seemed to want the presumption to go the other way, that
such relationships should be presumed consensual in the absence of evidence
to the contrary.

A brief review of Judith Levine's book prepared by Will Baude is also available on-line,
here. I believe that the review was originally prepared as a class assignment.
What sort of excellent undergraduate institution would have courses that
encourage such creative thinking?

Labels: Crescat, Netherlands, sex, teens