Vietnamese Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:19 PM

US drug laws are draconian by any rational standard, but in various Asian dragons, draco stalks the land even more ruthlessly. An Australian woman was convicted in Vietnam for trying to smuggle 1.5 kilos of heroin OUT of the country. She received life in prison.

That is, at first she received a life sentence, but the sentence was changed on appeal. Not an appeal by the defense -- no, an appeal by the prosecution. And the appeals court could not abide by the trial court's leniency -- after all, mercy in this case might lead to more heroin leaving the country. So now the 34-year old woman is slated to be executed by firing squad.

This is the (il)logical end of the criminalization of victimless crimes. The usual story is that we calibrate punishment with the harm caused by criminal behavior. Without actual harm, who knows what constitutes an appropriate penalty? A small fine? Execution? There were times when those who traded heroin internationally were respected, upstanding businesspeople -- their punishment was thanks. How have we -- and the Vietnamese -- convinced ourselves that heroin trading must be harshly, cruelly punished?

Labels: Asia, heroin, sentencing

 
Indonesian Insanity
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:53 PM

Indonesia's cruelty in the name of the drug war is persistent but, alas, not unique. Here's an article concerning a 21-year old Australian whom the Indonesians hope soon to kill for carrying around an officially disapproved substance when he was 18 -- surely his impending death will be undertaken for the children. Another Indonesian court is showing dangerous leniency in the case of a repeat possessor (not trafficker), an American who has been sentenced to a mere three and a half years in prison. (More than ten years ago his failure to obey rules on what not to possess cost him a year in an Indonesian jail.) I am certain his (surely too merciful) punishment is for the children, because the judge said so: 'The defendant repeated his acts, which could cause the moral damage of Balinese youth.' Throwing people's lives away for a pin's fee, however, apparently is not morally damaging, to children or adults.

Indonesian idiocy is longstanding; it is also widely shared. What did Bertrand Russell say? “The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

Labels: Asia, drugs, heroin, sentencing

 
Betel Nuts in Taiwan
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:39 PM

There's a world health promotion conference currently underway in Vancouver. According to this article in the Vancouver Sun, one of the topics that is being addressed is the consumption of betel nuts, especially in Taiwan. Betel nut chewing, which has a stimulative effect, is a popular activity throughout much of Asia; in Forces of Habit, David Courtwright suggests (page 54) that "Something like a tenth of the world's population now indulges in the practice." But Taiwan has developed its own method of distributing betel: roadside booths staffed by underdressed betel nut beauties. And the health effects of betel nut consumption can be severe, as the Vancouver Sun article notes:

The nuts [in Taiwan] are sold at roadside kiosks by scantily clad women and chewing them is a major reason why oral cancers are the third most common cancer (after lung and liver) in that country. In Canada, by comparison, oral cancer ranks ninth in men and 15th in women.

This shocking method of delivering betel nuts -- employing attractive women in revealing clothes inside roadside booths -- would never be used to peddle a psychoactive substance in the good ol' USA.

Labels: Asia, betel nuts, Canada, coffee, Taiwan

 
Bhutan's Tobacco Ban
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:31 PM

Bhutan banned sales of tobacco about two and a half years ago, following up with a rather comprehensive public smoking ban. (Vice Squad, prescient as ever, noted the forthcoming ban a full year in advance, on December 9, 2003.) How have things worked out in the tobacco-free paradise? Well, perhaps not as swimmingly as one might have hoped -- Bhutan is landlocked, incidentally -- according to this article from India eNews. Detailed regulations implementing the ban have not yet been adopted, and tourists, diplomats, and NGO workers are excluded from the prohibition (their health being less important, presumably). The black market thrives -- who would have thought of that? But I will not go so far as to blame a 7,000 acre forest fire on the public smoking ban (as the linked article seems to do); teenagers were the culprits, and they are likely to smoke clandestinely even when public smoking by adults is legal.

The Bhutanese are not averse to all vice. According to one of the kingdom's official web pages, chang (a beer), arra (a distilled spirit), and betel nuts are all common, along with salted butter tea.

Labels: Asia, Bhutan, Prohibition, smoking ban, teens, tobacco

 
Kansas Community Standards
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:36 PM

Sexually-explicit forms of speech in the US can be regulated or banned provided that the three-part test from the 1973 case of Miller v. California is satisfied. The first part of the "Miller test" is that the work, taken as a whole, and in applying contemporary community standards, appeals to the prurient interest in sex. The second prong of the Miller test relating to "patent offensiveness" also relies upon contemporary community standards. (The third prong concerning the lack of serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value is not to be judged by community standards, according to a later Supreme Court decision, Pope v. Illinois (1987).)

I bring it up because I am wondering about the latest activities of anti-obscenity crusaders in Kansas. They have presented county prosecutors with petitions urging that grand juries be empaneled with the aim of bringing obscenity charges against some local businesses -- not one or two businesses, but, er, 32. Doesn't the very fact that they can identify 32 filth peddlers suggest that these businesses are operating in accord with community standards? I mean, maybe one or two businesses might be able to make a go of it even while flying wildly in the face of community standards -- but 32?

The anti-obscenity crusaders should be careful in opening up this petition thing. In Hong Kong, a student journal that included a quiz asking about incest and bestiality fantasies provoked 184 complaints, leading to a finding that the journal was indecent. But then a website went up describing some Biblical scenes; more than 1700 complaints have now been submitted to the indecency authorities about the Bible.

Labels: Asia, Kansas, obscenity, pornography, Supreme Court

 
Obscenity in Singapore
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:32 PM

Singapore seems to have an interesting and altering relationship with vice. Prostitution is legal in Singapore. Pornography is forbidden, though it appears to be available easily over the web. The first 'adult' magazine, quite tame by US standards, became available recently. Legal casinos are on the way -- but not with the participation of Macau's questionable gambling monopolist.

This week marked a milestone of sorts, when a play about a native Singaporean ex-porn star opened. The actress, who featured in a 1995 movie shot in California, is apparently well-known in Singapore -- and the new play will enhance her celebrity -- but the movie itself, of course, cannot legally be sold there (in Singapore, that is, not in California).

Labels: Asia, obscenity, pornography, Singapore

 
The NY Times Goes Casino Wacky
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:17 PM

Sunday, March 25, 2007, seemed like a normal enough day, but somehow it was something of a gambling bonanza at the Gray Lady (and today is something of a Vice Squad milestone, our first use of that weird "Gray Lady" sobriquet for the New York Times). Not one, not two, but three substantial articles that centered on casinos, of all places. Someone at the SEC might want to check for unusual trading activity in gambling stocks late last week.

Article #1: The Business section holds a story about the world's largest betting locale, Macao. Mostly we learn a good deal about the fellow who for 40 years held a monopoly on casino gambling in Macao, but now he is being forced to share. He shared before, too, with some unsavory groups, but the extent to which he was forced to do so remains unclear. His new sharing is with some of the major players in the international casino world, such as MGM Mirage and Steve Wynn. The erstwhile monopolist (not monogamist, apparently) has had 17 children with 4 wives, and has opened a casino in Pyongyang. He also enjoys ballroom dancing.

Article #2: The special Style Magazine featured Spring 2007 travel, including a short piece on how casinos have become packaged with lots of upscale non-gambling offerings. Here we learn, parenthetically, that "Ceasars Forum in Las Vegas is North America’s highest-grossing shopping area per square foot," and we also hear again about some of those new competitors in Macao.

Article #3: The Sunday Styles section leads with a description of what it is like to watch virtually non-stop college basketball for days at a time at a Las Vegas casino. A healthy interest in alcohol, nicotine, and gambling seems to lend some appeal to the activity. (The article is titled "Victory Never Smelled Worse" -- you'll have to read it for the explanation (though a reasoned guess should suffice), Vice Squad has its limits.) You will not be surprised to learn that gender balance is not the rule.

Labels: Asia, casino, gambling

 
Singapore's Anti-Drug Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:06 AM

For most of human history sellers of opiates have engaged in a legal and even respected trade. Of course, in our more enlightened times we know that such sellers must be punished. And no country is more eager to punish, and to take the punishment to absurd extremes, than Singapore (though China and Malaysia are among the progressive nations competing for the honor). Today Singapore hanged a 21-year old man who had been convicted of heroin trafficking.

Update: Moscow's mayor endorses the cruelty.

Labels: Asia, heroin, Russia

 
Malaysian Madness
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:45 PM

Concerned about an upsurge in prostitution? Have you considered whipping the customers of prostitutes? No? Well, neither has the government of Malaysia. But whipping the prostitutes, now there's a policy worth considering: "Malaysian lawmakers have called for foreign prostitutes to be whipped as a deterrent to others considering coming here to work in the sex industry, a report said on Tuesday." Even Lear, in his madness, could see through that one:

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back;
Thou [Thy blood] hotly lust'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her.

The Malaysian parliamentarian -- this learned Theban, this noble philosopher -- asks, logically enough, 'If we can impose whipping for drug addicts, why can't we do the same for prostitutes'?

Though flaying isn't bad enough and hanging would be fair, at least for those druggies, it seems. Four students, it is alleged, were found in possession of less than $2000 worth of marijuana. "The students face death by hanging under Malaysia's harsh anti-drug laws if found guilty."

Labels: Asia, marijuana, Prohibition, prostitution, Shakespeare

 
Vietnam v. Singapore...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:41 PM

..and Vietnam wins.

Life in prison for possession of a few pounds of heroin is a travesty of justice. But the bar for justice has been set so low, especially in Asia, that even such a cruel sentence looks compassionate. Let's hope that this signals the start of a Dutch auction in drug possession sentencing.

Labels: Asia, heroin

 
More Asian Drug War Humanitarianism
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:09 AM

The point of the war on drugs is to decrease human suffering. If you enter a war for some other higher purpose, the inevitable casualties are a tragic but necessary price to achieve that paramount objective. But casualties that are sustained in a humanitarian war directly undermine the point of the war. They should be avoided at almost all cost, or the war itself should be re-thought.

Our attempt to make people better off via the war on drugs somehow skirts this logic. We not only do not go out of our way to avoid casualties, we actively seek them out. The most recent outrage (via D'Alliance) is the scheduled execution by hanging of a 25-year old in Singapore. He was convicted of trying to leave the country with a few hundred grams of heroin. So he must die. Presumably this death is necessary to deter others who might otherwise leave Singapore with heroin. Wasn't heroin completely legal once? How did we end up executing people for carrying a little bit of it? Don't such punishments run counter to the presumably humanitarian purpose of this war, this absurd war, on drugs?

Declare a substance to be evil and this is what happens: no standards by which to judge infractions, and a willingness to adopt any sort of enforcement that offers hope of reducing the use of the evil substance. Drugs do addle minds, no?

Asia seems particularly susceptible to drug war fanaticism, in the Santayanian sense of redoubling your efforts when you have lost sight of your aims. Here's a previous Vice Squad post on the lamentable phenomenon.

Labels: Asia, drugs, Prohibition, Singapore

 
Fifteen Years for Two Joints
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:43 PM

DRCNet tells the sad story of a fellow arrested in the Philippines for possessing two marijuana cigarettes -- probably after an illegal search -- and subsequently sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Even in Louisiana, it would take a third conviction for two joints to get you that much time. And the judge is willing to live with this injustice? "... but man, proud man,/Drest in a little brief authority,/Most ignorant of what he's most assured..."

Labels: Asia, marijuana, Philippines

 
A Bali trip gone bad
- posted by Michael @ 9:59 PM

An Australian woman has just been sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian prison for smuggling about 4 kilos of marijuana into Bali. The judge said that Schapelle Corby was "legally and convincingly" guilty of smuggling. Ms. Corby has maintained her innocence. She says that the drugs were planted into her lugguage by the baggage hadlers who were trying to use her as a mule without her knowledge in a drug smuggling racket. Apparently, both the defense and the prosecution are going to appeal. The defense will appeal the guilty verdict while the prosecution will appeal the lightness of the sentence.

Each country is entitled to have it own laws, but c'mon, 20 years in prison? And apparently it could have been (and still can be) a life sentence or even the death penalty. Shouldn't somebody invade Indonesia to bring true democracy and reasonable laws there? And when they are at it, perhaps they could take care of California as well?

Labels: Asia, marijuana

 
Security Cameras Moving Singapore's Prostitution Trade
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:08 PM

There are some legal brothels in Singapore, but some illicit streetwalking takes place nonetheless, of course. Now security cameras have been set up in some of the usual spots, and they seem to have been effective at relocating the prostitution trade. But they have had an unintended effect, too -- instead of being a boon to "legitimate" businesses in the (former?) red light areas by keeping away the riff-raff, the cameras are scaring away custom:

The men are staying away because they're afraid of being misunderstood by their wives, while our women customers are staying away because they don't want to be mistaken as prostitutes," Joyce Low, who runs an acupuncture and foot reflexology business in the area, was quoted as saying. The manager of a clothing store, Simon Chan, also said business had been affected with sales down by 60 percent.

Thanks to one of my generous students for the pointer. On security cameras more generally, Scott at Grits For Breakfast explains why they don't seem to reduce crime.

Labels: Asia, cameras, prostitution, Singapore

 
Jakarta Passes Public Smoking Ban
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:32 PM

Jakarta, Indonesia, one of the most cigarette-intensive locales in the world, has adopted a public smoking ban that is scheduled to take effect next year. (Straits Times Interactive story here, registration required.) The stated rationale behind the measure was not the standard 'protect the health of employees' trope, but rather, the need to combat air pollution. The Governor also was impressed with Singapore's public smoking ban. Here's an excerpt from the Straits Times article:

Every year about 182 billion cigarettes, mostly kretek cigarettes, are smoked in Indonesia, a number that has been growing persistently since the 1970s due to the relatively low prices.

Some 57,000 people die every year in Indonesia from illnesses caused by the smoking habit, according to the Health Ministry.

So huge is the number of smokers in the country that despite being the largest producer of cloves, a key ingredient for the popular kretek cigarettes, Indonesia still imports the commodity to meet the high domestic demand.

Thanks to a friend of Vice Squad for the pointer.

Labels: Asia, smoking ban

 
Religious Suppression of Obscenity in Malaysia, Kentucky
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:05 PM

(1) "Authorities in a conservative Malaysian state want Muslim women to completely cover their hair while at work and non-Muslim women to refrain from wearing tight jeans or short skirts, in a crackdown on what they deem as 'obscenity.'" (They also require stores to have gender-segregated payment counters.)

(2) An adult bookstore owner, Jeree Mills, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obscenity charge, as part of a plea agreement in Barbourville, Kentucky. "Mills said her business, which sells adult magazines, movies and novelties, will stay open. But as part of the plea, she agreed to close the store between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sundays, so it won't be open during morning church services."

Labels: Asia, obscenity

 
Vice Squad Quiz: What is Criminalised: Cockfighting or Gambling?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:31 PM

In Vietnam, 39 people have been arrested for cockfight-related activities. Not for organizing cockfights -- but for betting on them.

Labels: Asia, gambling

 
More Drug-Law Cruelty
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:37 PM

Our own anti-drug laws are so ridiculously draconian that I hesitate to take other countries to task for their own mindless severity. Nevertheless, Indonesia manages to regularly overcome my reluctance (on August 7, for example, or March 2). Today, via Crimlaw, we learn of a 27-year old Australian woman who apparently was intending a two-week vacation in Bali with her siblings. At the Bali airport, they found 4.2 kilos of pot in her belongings, and now this major trafficker has a potential death sentence facing her. Indonesia's behavior in drug cases should make it unwelcome in the community of nations -- except so much of that community differs but little from Indonesia in terms of drug-hysteria cruelty. Yes, Indonesia, your drug law enforcement probably makes it a little bit harder for some of your residents and visitors to consume a substance that they want to consume. Good for you. What a huge victory, costing, as it does, only any pretence you might have had to humanity or justice.

Labels: Asia, drugs, marijuana, sentencing

 
Crackdown on Commercial Sex in South Korea
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:41 PM

Friend of Vice Squad Pak Shun Ng brings our attention to this article at the Straits Times Interactive (Singapore), detailing a recent police crackdown on prostitution in Korea. The police spokesperson actually seemed surprised that some of the sex workers were unhappy about the raids, perhaps because the crackdown is presumably motivated to help sex workers: "The owners and the women actually complained about losing their livelihood and they seemed serious about it," the spokesperson is quoted as saying. Meanwhile, the perhaps unrelated attempt by the US armed services to make it an offense for a soldier based overseas to patronize a prostitute is receiving mixed reviews within the ranks. No word on how this change in service regulations will affect any possible repeat of a Mustang Ranch promotion from the early 1990s, when unmarried Gulf War veterans were given free "parties" at the ranch.

Labels: Asia, Korea, prostitution

 
Indonesian Justice
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:12 AM

From today's Chicago Tribune (registration required):

An appeals court overturned the convictions of four Indonesian security officers implicated in 1999 violence in East Timor, a major blow to efforts to punish top brass over the bloodshed that killed as many as 1,500 people...

The verdicts mean that 16 of the 18 suspects tried in the violence have now been acquitted. The only two who have been found guilty--Guterres ["notorious militia leader Eurico Guterres," whose own ten-year jail term was cut in half] and the tiny country's ex-governor--were ethnic East Timorese civilians.

On the other hand, a man convicted of attempting to smuggle 13 kilograms of heroin into Indonesia was executed by a firing squad on Thursday. (He did not have the heroin on him -- he was implicated by two other men who were caught with the heroin.) His execution might be the start of a cascade, as there are twenty or more other prisoners placed on Indonesia's death row for drug charges. The point of anti-drug laws, of course, is humanitarian, to offer people healthier lives. Vietnam is not shirking its role in the humanitarian effort, by upholding four death sentences handed out for smuggling less than 8 kilos of heroin.

Heroin used to be sold over-the-counter in the United States and in many other parts of the world; possession of heroin in the US was not made illegal until 1924. Fortunately, we have become more enlightened since then, and have given fuller rein to our humanitarian impulses.

Labels: Asia, heroin