Be careful of those bread rolls if you are flying to Dubai
- posted by Michael @ 8:42 PM

Looks like Dubai might also have the need to fill up some prison cells (see this post for March 6). "News of the Weird" for this week reports:

In February, a court in Dubai ... sentenced Briton Keith Brown, 43, to the standard four-year minimum term in prison for violating the country's extreme "zero tolerance" drug laws, even though the only drug found was a "speck" (0.003 grams) of cannabis caught in the tread of his shoe and discovered only because the Dubai airport uses sophisticated drug-detection equipment.

My guess is that they discovered it because they make people take off their shoes as they go through airport security. Maybe that was the idea of that procedure to begin with. The same little article also said that "[p]reviously, a Canadian man was imprisoned for possession of three poppy seeds (from a bread roll he had eaten at Heathrow Airport in London) that had fallen into his clothing as he prepared for a flight to Dubai." What a country!

[Vice Squad first covered the Dubai airport incidents in early February. -- JL]

Labels: arrests, drugs, zero tolerance

 
Regulating Vice: The Introduction (part II)
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:31 PM

The Introduction proceeds by discussing a typical vice policy dilemma, that of Zero Tolerance versus Harm Reduction. First, imagine that vice activity has no benefits at all -- then the social goal, presumably, would be to decrease the total harms, or total social costs, of vice and vice policy enforcement. Drawing upon MacCoun and Reuter, Total harm = [# of vice incidents] times [harm per incident]. It looks as if reducing the number of vice incidents is a good way to reduce harm, but there is a catch: in practice, policies aimed at reducing vice incidents simultaneously increase the harm per incident. [Zero tolerance policies are among those that hope to reduce the number of incidents.] Under alcohol Prohibition, for instance, drinking went down, but the drinking that remained tended to come at high cost, including poisonings via adulterated beverages and crime and corruption. So even if you ignore the benefits of vice, it might be desirable to adopt policies that accept some vicious behavior, in order to reduce harms per incident and potentially, to reduce overall social costs. Thus it makes sense to consider policies such as the provision of clean needles to heroin addicts, or drug legalization, as possible methods to reduce overall costs.

The harm reduction versus zero tolerance trade-off exists in a wide array of social policies. One that has recently been in the news concerns the provision of driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Such policies probably decrease the social cost per illegal immigrant driver. Opponents stress, instead, that license availability in some sense subsidizes illegal immigration, so the number of incidents of illegal immigrant driving might go up.

Labels: harm reduction, Regulating Vice, zero tolerance

 
Zero Tolerance for Alcohol With Youthful Drivers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:55 PM

Vice Squad is not all that keen on zero tolerance (ZT) policies aimed at adult vice. But Phil Cook's Paying the Tab notes at least one dimension of success with respect to zero tolerance policies targeted at young drivers (those under 21, and hence, in the US, unable to legally purchase alcohol) who consume alcohol. Congress pressured individual states to adopt ZT laws (not unlike the manner in which in Congress adopted an effectively national minimum drinking age and blood-alcohol standard for drunk driving), which enhanced penalties for underage drivers who were operating their vehicles after drinking any detectable amount of alcohol whatsoever.

All the states had come into line by 1998. The resulting natural experiment generated strong evidence that the ZT laws reduced by 13-20 percent binge drinking and total alcohol consumption by males. Thus, the demand for alcohol was reduced by limiting one unfortunately complementary activity, namely, driving.

The quote, minus an internal citation, is from pages 78-79 of Paying the Tab.

Labels: alcohol, Cook, driving, teens, zero tolerance

 
Controlled Drinking for Recovering Alcoholics?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:15 PM

Someone close to you has a serious drinking problem. Should this person be counseled to cut back on alcohol consumption, or to become completely abstinent? Like certain other zero-tolerance v. harm reduction issues (e.g., abstinence-only sex education for high schoolers), this question is very controversial.

This month the journal Addiction contributes to the debate, first with an article by Dawson, et al., "Recovery from DSM-IV alcohol dependence: United States, 2001-2002," and then with four responses to the article and a rejoinder by Dawson, et al.

The main finding of Dawson et al. is that lots of folks who meet the standard markers for alcohol dependence eventually change their ways. While many of these folks become abstinent, a movement to low-risk drinking is also a common outcome. And these "recoveries" are generally accomplished without treatment for alcohol dependence. The authors themselves are quite measured in their interpretation of these findings, and the responses by and large are further calls for caution.

My own not-well-informed view is that for some (but by no means all) alcoholics, controlled drinking is essentially impossible. [Update: perhaps years after the current crisis or in a radically different environment even these individuals would be able to drink "socially".] A similar view (I think) is provided in Deborah Hasin's response:

A very important result of Dawson et al.'s paper is that full remission from the symptoms of DSM-IV alcohol dependence can occur among individuals who continue to drink. At one time, this finding would have been revolutionary. Fortunately, our field has matured enough so that is no longer the case. However, we remain without guidelines concerning who really must stop drinking in order to recover from DSM-IV alcohol dependence, and who can recover stably from dependence even while drinking moderately. While many guidelines exist on how to cut down or stop in terms of psychological (e.g. motivation, cognitive planning) and environmental changes (new peer groups, avoidance of cues for binging), however, these do not address the question of abstinence versus controlled drinking....

Labels: abstinence, addiction, alcohol, harm reduction, treatment, zero tolerance

 
What's In a Name?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:52 PM

The Mustang Ranch brothel by any other name would....oh, whatever. Turns out that two brothel owners in Nevada think that there is quite a bit in the name Mustang. The original Mustang Ranch, Nevada's first legal brothel, was shut down by the feds a few years ago. Then one of its buildings was purchased (on e-bay) and moved next to another brothel owned by the purchaser. He intends to re-open the relocated (and soon to be renovated) building under the name "Mustang Ranch," of course. But in the meantime, another brothel owner re-named his brothel the Mustang Ranch. He sued, and now the fellow with the re-located Mustang has been told by a judge that he can't use the name Mustang. Whatever the merits of the decision, it is nice to ponder that thanks to the legality of the brothels, this dispute will be settled by courts, and not by guns. Can't say the same for street-corner drug market disputes.

On the subject of names and Shakespeare and prostitution, I saw Shakespeare's Measure For Measure at Chicago's Navy Pier on Thursday night. The Chicago Shakespeare Theater occasionally replaces some archaic Shakespeare language with what I suppose they think is a more understandable version. Right near the end of the play, when Lucio is forced by the duke to marry the prostitute with whom he had a child, he complains "Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,/Whipping, and hanging." Punk means prostitute, but Chicago Shakespeare changed it to "slut". And what they did to another Vice Squad-favorite Lucio line, the one about how lechery "is well allied; but it is impossible to extirp it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down" -- well, they seemed to think that "extirp" doesn't measure up these days.

Incidentally, for vice policy buffs, Measure For Measure is pretty much the perfect play. Risking reductionism, let me just say that it presents the introduction of a zero tolerance policy, with all the usual trade-offs illuminated. That Shakespeare fellow, he's getting to be a pretty good playwright. (OK, I am reminded of another complaint I had about the Chicago Shakespeare Theater's version. In some "stage business" at the beginning, there's a mugging, accomplished with a knife and with the connivance of corrupt cops. The problem with such business is that (a) there's no mention of it in the play and (b) by presenting a crime with an actual victim (as opposed to the victimless vice crime of fornication), it pushes the viewer into supporting the ensuing crackdown. (Whether such a crackdown would likely lead to more or less violence is another matter.) There was also a gratuitous gunshot later in the Chicago version.)

Labels: Nevada, prostitution, Shakespeare, zero tolerance

 
Tolerate Prostitution? No, No, Yes, No
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:41 PM

In a major reform of commercial sex laws, the British government has proposed prostitution tolerance zones, as well as, perhaps, legalized brothels. But Birmingham has signaled its own zero tolerance approach, by golly:

Councillor Sue Anderson, chairwoman of the city council members' panel on prostitution and Cabinet member for social care and health, said local agencies wanted a zero tolerance approach to prostitution.

She said: "We are committed to addressing any activity surrounding prostitution which causes harm, nuisance and distress.

"The harm caused by both on and off street prostitution is unacceptable and we support a zero tolerance approach."

She continued: "We are recommending that civil and criminal law should be used effectively to tackle pimps, prostitutes, kerb crawlers, users and those who groom the vulnerable for prostitution.

"Where appropriate, legal powers should be strengthened and made more effective."

A crackdown? Hey, I hadn't thought of that -- that should cure any problems associated with prostitution.

In keeping with the special relationship between the US and Britain (or, OK, Birmingham), the US Army in Korea is adopting its own zero tolerance approach to prostitution:

YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea -- Nearly 400 U.S. servicemembers in South Korea have been punished this year for offenses related to prostitution, and military commanders promise continued efforts to end any activity associated with the sex trade or human trafficking, the top U.S. officer in South Korea said.

"Zero tolerance means exactly that. We're not going to tolerate behavior which is dehumanizing, demoralizing and illegal. That’s always been the military’s intent," U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Leon J. LaPorte said in an interview last week with Stars and Stripes.

Now don't get me wrong -- it isn't like the US armed forces haven't always had zero tolerance for, er, commercial vice:

LaPorte also dismissed the notion that the military has lately increased its focus on the issue.

"I wouldn't say that it's something newly emphasized because it has always been the position of the U.S. military — clearly it's been the position of this command — that we don't support this kind of activity," he said.

Liverpool, though, is sticking with its something-greater-than-zero tolerance approach. But they are calling their special areas managed zones, not tolerance zones:

A tolerance zone is where sex workers can work without interference from the authorities. A managed zone would see health workers working with vice girls and include measures such as drop-in centres.

Meanwhile, back in the US, the arrest-our-way-out-of-this-problem approach goes from victory to victory: 85 arrests in Oakland, 100 arrests (for prostitution and drugs) in Orange County, Florida, and so on, and so on.

Labels: arrests, Britain, harm reduction, Korea, prostitution, zero tolerance

 
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

 
Naperville's Anti-Dodos
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:09 PM

In Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the Dodo decides the outcome of various meanderings defined as a race by declaring: 'EVERYBODY has won, and all must have prizes.' In Naperville, Illinois, the ruling is "EVERYBODY has lost, and all must have fines." Naperville likes to ticket teens not only for drinking, but for not drinking, too, at least if they choose not to drink in the presence of underage drinkers. Tomorrow there will be a town meeting on the "presence restriction." Someone at the meeting might want to mention that if you punish the innocent and guilty alike, the incentive to be innocent is diminished. (The loyal Vice Squad reader will recall our dismay at this story a few months ago.)

Labels: alcohol, driving, teens, zero tolerance

 
Vice is Elsewhere
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:25 PM

I mentioned before that I have been guest blogging at Overlawyered this week. Recent posts include:

(1) Obese Arkansas Schoolkids

(2) Vice Law Revolutions

(3) A Different Sort of Zero Tolerance Tale

(4) Alcohol Prohibition v. Drug Prohibition

(5) More on Alcohol Taxation.

Labels: obesity, Prohibition, solipsism, taxes, zero tolerance

 
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

 
Adjustments to Partially Offset Unjust Drug Laws
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:09 PM

A friend of Vice Squad brings our attention to this New York Times story (registration required) reporting on ways in which New York state's criminal justice system has attempted to ameliorate the ridiculously severe sentences legally required for many convicted drug offenders: "...over the years, the laws have been tweaked to reduce their impact, and prosecutors have increasingly been steering addicts into treatment programs instead of sending them to prison. And perhaps most important, the number of people still imprisoned under the provisions of the original tough sanctions has been falling steadily in recent years." Also, the governor has granted clemency to some drug offenders caught up in the most outrageous miscarriages of justice.

The response of the New York state legal system is a common one. There are three elements of rules: the standards imposed, the enforcement effort, and the punishments meted out to those found guilty of violating the standards. (The standards/enforcement/sanctions trichotomy follows the work of Berkeley professor Eugene Bardach -- see this previous Vice Squad post on zero tolerance for more information.) When pressure is applied in one direction to one of the elements -- here, the stiffening of sanctions in the mid-1970s -- the other elements tend to adjust in the opposite direction. According to the Times article, in this case, for instance, prosecutors have been more circumspect about bringing felony drug charges.

Still, offsetting responses generally do not render rule changes futile -- the responses only partly offset the impact of the severe sentences. So there is much to be said for eliminating from the laws of New York state the draconian penalties applied to drug offenses. A legal but tightly controlled market would be still better, I maintain, but even within a criminalization regime, the New York laws can be improved through more sensible sentences for non-violent drug crimes.

The story indirectly highlights one of the dangers of zero tolerance style policies: as these policies often simultaneously push standards, enforcement, and sanctions all in the same direction of increased severity, zero tolerance policies reduce the extent to which adjustments in other dimensions can offset a sub-par situation with respect to one of the dimensions of a rule.

Labels: drugs, policing, Prohibition, sentencing, zero tolerance

 
Controlling Drunken Soccer Spectators
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:13 PM

The Euro 2004 soccer championship finals will soon be upon us, with Portugal the site for this year's tournament. One problem with these tournaments in the past has been that they attract a critical mass of soccer enthusiasts who are willing (and able, alas) to drink heavily and brawl with supporters of other national teams (or brawl among themselves, for that matter). Four years ago, host nations Belgium and the Netherlands instituted a zero tolerance policy towards fan violence, such that folks involved in any fisticuffs were quickly herded up and shipped home, prevented from seeing any more of the soccer action in person. (Charges were later dropped against most alleged offenders, but it was the arrest, temporary confinement, and exile that was the real punishment, anyway.) There was still a bit of violence (well, even some rioting), but the strict policy was widely viewed as a success.

Preparations are now underway to provide security for Euro 2004. England supporters have traditionally provided more than their share of hooligans, and the UK has greatly expanded the number of citizens (to 2000, with hundreds more to be added) who are covered by travel bans (precluding foreign travel) during the tourney. A new approach to be used by the Portuguese police, however, will be to require alcohol and drug tests of fans who appear to be visibly intoxicated. Though details are sketchy, it sounds as if the screening will take place prior to entering stadium grounds. In other words, entering a stadium while intoxicated will be an offense that precludes admission, even if you are a pleasant, quiet drunk. It is unclear if those who become intoxicated (again, without otherwise misbehaving) during the match will be sent off. It is also unclear how the drug tests will be carried out.

Labels: alcohol, Europe, soccer, testing, zero tolerance

 
Harm Reduction and Teens
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:18 PM

Rules often try to draw bright lines, even when reality is rather murky.
A driver who is proceeding safely but who is stopped by police will be
arrested (in most US states) if he or she is found to have a blood
alcohol content of .08; if the Breathalyzer test reads .07, our motorist
will be allowed to proceed on his or her merry way.

Rules for kids are particularly sensitive about adopting bright lines,
because children have less ability than adults to make responsible
discriminations among various circumstances. Both "Just say no" and
"Don't take candy from a stranger" are rules that would admit some
exceptions, but to start explaining the exceptions to kids could completely
undermine the rules. Better to stick with the understandable and
enforceable precepts, unrefined though they may be.

In other words, for young kids, "Just Say No" is probably a good rule
in lots of arenas, including when dealing with offers to use alcohol,
nicotine, and other drugs. But as kids age, things get more complicated.
Most American high schoolers try an illicit drug, and a large majority
try alcohol. That is, on average, "Just Say No" is more honour'd in the
breach than the observance by older teenagers.* Wishing that it were
otherwise will not make it so.

What to do? One organization, "Safety First," provides a plan. It
starts by recommending abstinence, but for when that advice proves
uncompelling, it recommends, not surprisingly, safety. In the words
of its website, "Putting safety first requires that we provide teens with
credible information and resources. Whether at home or in schools,
there are ways to honestly and effectively educate youth about the
risks and consequences of drug use." Their webpage on "Things
You Can Do" provides more details.

Vice Squad generally approves of harm reduction measures in vice
policy, and takes a rather jaundiced view of what might be termed
their opposite, Zero Tolerance policies. But the precise mix of tactics
that is best is very complicated, and surely varies with the vice under
consideration, the environment, and the audience. As noted above,
simple, easy-to-apply rules along the lines of "Just Say No" can be
useful for younger kids; however, as the audience grows more
sophisticated, and as "breach" becomes more common, the utility
of such hard and fast rules diminishes.

The first two paragraphs above are drawn from Chapter One of my
book, The Political Economy of Rule Evasion and Policy Reform.

*Pedantic note: I have succumbed to peer pressure and am misusing
Hamlet's phrase; in the play, the phrase "more honour'd in the breach
than the observance" means that the more honourable course of action
is to fail to observe the custom under discussion.

Labels: drugs, harm reduction, teens, zero tolerance

 
Zero Tolerance
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 1:21 PM

Mark Kleiman laments two recent horror stories associated with zero
tolerance (ZT) policies. The failures of ZT are sufficiently legion
to keep at least two websites well-supplied -- see here (ZT Nightmares) and here (End ZT).
Nevertheless, faced with a longstanding problem with drugs or violence,
many jurisdictions still turn to ZT.

Regulatory regimes can be characterized by the standards of behavior that they call for, the nature
and extent of enforcement of those standards, and the punishments imposed on those violators
who are identified and apprehended. (This trichotomy is drawn from the work of Berkeley
professor Eugene Bardach -- see the reference at the bottom.) Zero tolerance policies
try to ratchet up the strictness in all three dimensions: standards are raised, so that behavior
that was not transgressive before becomes redefined as an offense; more police officers or other
enforcement resources are deployed to raise the probability that offenders are caught; and jail
sentences, fines, or other punishments are enhanced. More cops and stiffer penalties are
familiar components of any crackdown. The broadening of what constitutes an offense, however,
is somewhat more surprising. Schools seem particularly prone to designate offenses broadly when
they adopt zero tolerance policies: aspirin becomes a forbidden drug, or a key chain becomes a weapon.

"Zero tolerance" was born of vice policy: the term seems to date from the early 1980s, when the
US Navy was looking to control drug use among its sailors. Later, in 1988, the National Drug Policy
Board adopted a Zero Tolerance Program, which led to such measures as the seizure of a $2.5
million yacht because less than one-tenth of an ounce of marijuana was found on board. (The yacht
was eventually returned.)

Zero tolerance policies are designed to work by increasing deterrence. If people know that
impeccable behavior is expected, that failure to meet high standards is likely to result in
apprehension, and that the penalties imposed on violators are significant, then they will adjust
their behavior to conform to the standards. Or at least that is the theory.

The problem is that the theory of zero tolerance is internally inconsistent for most adult, vice-
related offenses (for kids, too, though that is another story). For the deterrence to work, you
have to make it clear that you will actually be able to catch offenders, and that you will be willing
to punish them according to the zero tolerance standards. In other words, the threatened
punishments must be credible. But for adult vice, both the ability to uncover offenses and the
willingness to punish them are hard to establish. Indeed, the "victimless" nature of vice crime
undermines both components of credibility -- the crimes are hard to bring to light, and the
willingness to impose harsh sentences for behavior that harms no one is frequently absent.
As a result, the adoption of a zero tolerance policy often sets a trap for enforcers. To try to
establish credibility, they indulge in public proclamations of their commitment to the new policy.
Then some minor or inadvertent "violation" comes to light, and the authorities can either destroy
the hard-gained credibility of the policy by not implementing it, or look foolish by harshly punishing
some minor violation, or even a clearly beneficial act.

Even when ZT policies can be imposed with a strong dose of credibility -- for instance, if mandatory
drug testing is sure to uncover any violations -- the credibility can still come with a heavy
price attached. You must still occasionally harshly punish people who haven't done much of
anything wrong, and furthermore, you might induce behaviors that are even worse. Having marijuana
smokers switch to alcohol (or hallucinogens) in order to pass mandatory drug tests is probably not an
improvement. Even when few people are punished, the price of a ZT policy might be severe. Imagine a
credible ZT policy against speeding, following too closely, or changing lanes without signaling while
driving. The entire driving experience would be incredibly nervewracking -- even well-intentioned
people will have to watch over their every move with such assiduous care that their quality of life will
be undermined. But to some extent this is what we have done to many teenagers, who have to ensure
that they don't have an aspirin on hand, don't forget to wear their belt, don't forget 1000 other things
that might trigger a ZT "violation" and suspension.

A lot more can be said about ZT, but perhaps the less the better. Diehards can check out Chapter 3
of my book, The Political Economy of Rule Evasion and Policy Reform.

Reference

Bardach, Eugene, "Social Regulation as a Generic Policy Instrument." Chapter 7, pp. 197-229, in
Lester M. Salamon and Michael S. Lund, eds., Beyond Privatization: The Tools of Government
Action, Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1989.

Labels: zero tolerance