Zurich’s new police chief has received “thousands of complaints” from residents about the city’s thriving red light district. So he’s planning a police trip to Germany to check out a possible solution: ’sex-boxen’, or drive-in boxes where prostitutes can do their thing in relative privacy and safety. The boxes were first used in Holland, and Cologne became the first German city to implement them in 2002, after which they spread to other German cities like Essen.
Jessica Francis of the Swiss daily Blick (translated from German) stresses that the Zurich policemen who are going on this German study trip “do not go for pleasure,” instead they just want to study if something similar can be implemented in their city. In Cologne, the city fenced in an area about the size of a football field, provided a gate and privacy screen, and outlawed filming and photography. After the first three years, they declared the sex-boxen a success, with little violence perpetrated against prostitutes and improved health among sex workers.
Still, it’s hard to picture Richard Gere and Julia Roberts falling in love in one of these:
So far the police department doesn’t have a site in mind for Zurich’s version of the boxes, but they are preparing a report for the city council on their findings.
Mike Tyson sat down with Pablo S. Torre for a feature in Sports Illustrated's 'Where Are They Now' issue, on newsstands this week.
Howard Schatz/SI
This spring, over the course of two days and two different cities (New York and Las Vegas), I spent approximately eight hours hanging out with Mike Tyson. The final product is a feature in Sports Illustrated's annual "Where Are They Now?" issue, on newsstands this week. Here, below, is a portion of our conversation.
SI: I imagine you have a few stories from your days as a junkie.
Mike Tyson: Listen: I was in St. Tropez, in the South of France. In Ibiza, Spain. I was in Monte Carlo. I was in the Ukraine, Russia, all those places, for three months. From Russia I went to Lisbon, Portgual, from Portugal I went to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I met this drug dealer, right? And he sees that I like getting high, and he wants to be my buddy, right? This guy goes and gets me a big rock of cocaine. So pretty soon I got a party going on. I got everything: I got these rugby players. I got these naked girls, I got all these ... everything's going on in the room. Plus I also had this girl with me that I picked up in Romania. But then [the dealer he met in Amsterdam] saw how much of a mess I was. He came in and kicked everybody out of my room! All the nude people, all the people having sex. He said, "I feel so bad I ever gave him that stuff."
SI: How about in Las Vegas? What would your typical day in Vegas be like?
Tyson: This is how the day would start: I would go to a club, at say, 2 o'clock [a.m.]. Hang out there for what, two hours, and then I'd go to the after-hours [clubs], that start at 6 o'clock [a.m.]. So I'd stay there from 6 in the morning to 7:30 at night. I'd be sitting down and drinking and doing cocaine, talking to girls ... doing anything. Everything. Then I make it home and I'm tripping out at home. I'm calling people, I'm tired, but I've got people coming in and we're making plans to go out a few hours later. We're getting high, staying up, [doing] cocaine. Somebody would be calling me: "Come hang out with me." So we would go out and get high, till 11 o'clock [p.m.] or something, then go somewhere, to a bar or somewhere. We might go to a club, then get high all day long.
SI: You got involved with prostitutes.
Tyson: Listen, I was living a crazy life. A [prostitute] would go, "There's that guy who hit me the other day, who took money from me the other day, who intimidated me." And [that guy] had to give some money up. [I'd say,] "This is my girl, man. She works for me now. This is my girl now." That's how it was. I wanted to show loyalty to these people. I was so stupid. I'd say, "If you have a problem, just let me know." And all these guys would say, "What's Mike Tyson going to do [to me]?" It was always like that until I got in their f-----' ass. I'm a nice man, but back then, I wasn't. I'm not proud of it.
SI: So your home looks pretty different now, it's safe to say...
Tyson: I'm very fortunate that I have my wife and my children. I don't know how it happened, but, man, I'm living such a different life. Listen: If I allowed my will to run riot, this house would be full, you'd hear people screaming from sex upstairs. If I allowed my mind to run riot, that's what this place would be like.
SI: How many times did you end up going to rehab?
Tyson: I was addicted to rehab. I was like the poster boy, because I would go to like five meetings a day. You were only required to go to one. I would go to five, because I'm an addictive freak. I love hanging out, the camaraderie. It's just awesome! But you know what people want, too? [Tyson leans in closer, his voice suddenly quieter.] This is what I realized, bro: It gives people family. A way of starting over. [In rehab] we start a new life with new family members. And all they gotta do to stay in this family is not get high, and you gotta try really hard. And then if you do get high? "We got your back." That's what I like.
SI: What do you see when you look back at your infamous press conferences?
Tyson: I always wanted to be that guy who said, "F--- you." When I see people doing that, trying to imitate me, these tough guys trying to emulate me, I'm sitting there thinking, like, This guy's an idiot, so I know I'm an idiot. Floyd Mayweather doesn't stand a chance as far as that idiocy. He's not even in my league as an a--hole. He's a good kid. Everyone's hard on him, but this is a great kid. He's just a kid having fun, living in a fantasy world.
Behind the Tyson photo shoot
Source:SI
SI.com takes you behind the lens during the Mike Tyson photo shoot while reporter Pablo Torre discusses what it's like to spend a day with Iron Mike.
SI: When did your wife, Kiki, really get to know you?
Tyson: She really got to know who I am, the real core, maybe two years ago, three years ago. She got to know the barometer of an individual. She never gave up on me; I gave up on me. But she would never give up. I have a great deal of respect for her as a human being for that. Me and her, we're too far gone as just human beings to try and butter each other up.
SI: What was it like to lose over 100 pounds of weight?
Tyson: I don't want to be grotesque, but when you're 330 pounds, it's hard to wipe your a--. You know? I didn't like living like that. I felt like an animal. I'm more active than I have been in years.
SI: You're a big fan of ancient history, I've heard.
Tyson: I like classical biographies. Hannibal was an awesome person. Clovis was pretty awesome, the Franks and stuff. The Khans: Genghis and his grandsons. Listen, this is pretty interesting, with this Clovis guy. Clovis was king at 15. He gets to be king at 15 with some of his father's ragtag army. Still, he would conquer people and take all their lands. He was still an evil guy. His bloodline became kings of different countries.
SI: How did you learn about all of that stuff? Do you go online now?
Tyson: Before I got involved with the Internet, I used audio books. I used to listen to them while working out, or lying down and falling asleep. [Kiki, his wife, then interjects: "He'll randomly, out of the blue, say, 'Google for me, Who is Clovis' father's first monkey's pet?' It's the craziest things."]
SI: What did you make of your time in jail?
Tyson: In a weird way, prison was the best thing that happened to me. Imagine if I was out here from '92 to '95 -- I probably would have caught AIDS, I would've got shot, I would've got into all kinds of s---. You have no idea what kind of person I was on the street, when I was in Mike Tyson megalomaniac mode.
SI: You famously converted to Islam. Are you still very religious?
Tyson: You know, people say, "My god is better than your god." But how do we prove whose god is better? And this is when it gets really interesting. This is how we prove whose god is better than whose: [by saying,] "I'm going to kill you, or you're going to kill me first." And that's real godly. That's real godly. Yeah. I bet you people think, I wonder who would win a fight with the Prophet Mohammad and Jesus? These are sick people. This is crazy, you know what I mean?
But today, this area of the city looks nothing like it did decades ago.
An X-rated movie house is now a Dunkin' Donuts and the streets have more pedestrians than prostitutes.
But, you can now take a walk down memory lane, straight to the Combat Zone.
"This is kind of fun," said photographer John Goodman. "This is amazing."
Goodman, a Boston native, is one of three photographers taking part in a new exhibit at the Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston. The exhibit chronicles the people and places of Boston's Combat Zone from 1969 through 1978.
"I was a young kid with a camera and it was all there for me and I photographed it," said Goodman.
30 black-and-white photographs by Goodman, Roswell Angier and Jerry Berndt are on display.
Gallery owner Howard Yezerski says it's not just baby boomers taking a look.
"I'm really surprised at the amount of young people who are interested."
The neon sign that used to beckon patrons to the Naked I strip club, now welcomes gallery patrons.
Sean Callahan, 36, came to see the exhibit. He used to live in the combat zone.
"I had a loft in Chinatown which is now One Lincoln… but the Naked I…was still there."
While a few businesses remain, most are gone.
The pictures show not only just how much this area has changed, but also a glimpse into the lives of the people who used to live and work on these streets.
One shows a working guy walking past a working girl, a prostitute on Lagrange Street.
Another shows the youthful faces of a carload of guys, armed with a six-pack of Schlitz beer headed to the Zone for the night.
And then there's the wistful look of Lorrain Gail, a stripper at the Two O'Clock Club, who would end up murdered by an ex-boyfriend.
"Every single picture tells a story in and of itself," said Katie O'Brien, 33, who came to see the exhibit.
It was a time and place, now taking its place in Boston history.
"It was amazing in its own way," said Goodman.
The exhibit runs through March 16th at the Howard Yezerski Gallery in Boston.
Prostitutes stand around in the La Merced area of Mexico City
Maya Goded / Magnum
As twilight falls over Mexico City's Buenavista neighborhood, the traditional night shift begins. A woman in suspenders and a pink dress takes up right outside the doors of an American-owned bank. Across the street, two girls in miniskirts entice clients at the entrance of a subway station. A block down, a group of transvestites and transsexuals bare their wares outside a convenience store. Quickly, the streets fill with hundreds of sex workers, while their clients lurk discreetly in dark corners, vigilant under the threat of a sudden police raid.
It's a competitive business on the streets of Buenavista, made tougher as the recession has pushed more and more women to make a living here. Mexico's economy is predicted to shrink 7.2% in 2009, its worst slump since the Great Depression. Grim by any measure, the fragile economy is evident in the swelling number of prostitutes working in Mexico City, estimated to have risen 10% in the past year. Residents of Buenavista have long complained of the worsening situation, but now the government has put forth a solution. (See pictures of fighting crime in Mexico City.)
Agustin Torres, the newly sworn-in president of Mexico City's central borough, has proposed taking prostitutes off the streets and into a new "tolerance zone," like Amsterdam's red-light district, where sex workers can operate without the risk of police harassment and with access to contraception and health checks. The suggested circuit road on a nearby avenue away from family homes would help protect the sex workers against pimps and assailants, Torres says. "We have a duty to defend these people, who are simply doing their job," he told TIME. "Most of the residents of the area are poor folks who support a more socially progressive attitude to this issue."
Torres' approach to the oldest trade fits in with the leftist politics of his Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), which has run the Mexican capital for the past decade. PRD lawmakers have also legalized abortion, same-sex civil unions and a limited euthanasia in the city.
But the talk of sanctioned prostitution zones has set off alarm bells among Mexico's social conservatives, who fear their capital is turning into a den of sin. Leading the charge is the Roman Catholic Church, which argues that the government should be clamping down on the sex trade, not encouraging it. "It is funny how these groups want to allow women to have abortions and then won't defend them against the suffering of prostitution," says Father Hugo Valdemar, spokesman for the archdioceses of Mexico City. "They should be looking at how much the authorities themselves are involved in the mafias controlling this vice." The church has a special congregation dedicated to freeing prostitutes from the trade and helping steer them toward other jobs, Valdemar said. (See the picture gallery "Tales of the Drug Lord's Son.")
It is also unclear whether the sex-worker circuit would even be legal. Prostitution is a civil offense in Mexico City, and recent efforts to legalize it have gotten snared in legislative gridlock. Torres argues, however, that the rules are ambiguous and that international labor laws recognize sex work as legitimate employment. Further, prostitution zones have long been tolerated along some parts of the Mexico-U.S. border, providing havens for gringo truck drivers and young Texans looking to lose their virginity.
But downtown Mexico City is a long way from the Rio Grande. There are few American clients spending dollars in Buenavista. Mostly the johns are working and middle-class Mexicans who stop here after work and pay as little as $10 for a service. In these conditions, it could be hard to convince many of the sex workers themselves that it would benefit them to relocate to a special zone. "I have been here for 10 years. I had to work hard to get my place, and now I have my regular clients," says Monica, 35, eyeing passing men to get their attention. "Why should I move from here now?"
The women also have a deep-seated distrust of the government. Prostitutes complain that they are routinely shaken down by police, who demand $50 payoffs and threaten to lock them up overnight if they don't pay. Several prostitutes were suspicious that the new circuit was part of a government plan to tax them. And none of the prostitutes interviewed said they had to pay hustlers on the streets. "I don't work for pimps. I don't work for madams. And I am not going to work for the government," says Jennifer, a heavily made-up 24-year-old pacing in place to keep warm in the evening chill. "This is my business to provide for my family. And I want it to stay that way."
PROVIDENCE, R.I.—Police could start targeting some of the more than 30 suspected brothels operating across Rhode Island after Gov. Don Carcieri signed legislation Tuesday banning indoor prostitution in the only state where it was legal besides parts of Nevada.
The new law, which took effect immediately, makes prostitution a misdemeanor crime regardless of where it occurs. Prostitutes will face up to six months in prison for a first offense, while customers and prostitutes convicted of a subsequent offense could be punished by a maximum one-year sentence.
State officials hope the new law will help drive the brothels out of business, either because they voluntarily shut down or are targeted by police.
"This legislation will give law enforcement officials the tools that they need to curb prostitution in our state, make our communities safer," Carcieri said before signing the bills at a Statehouse ceremony.
It's unclear how quickly police will try using the new law to thwart a sex industry built off a decades-old legislative mishap.
State lawmakers inadvertently opened the loophole in 1980 when they passed legislation trying to crack down on prostitutes and their customers creating havoc in the West End of Providence. They adopted a law targeting those who sold sex in public, but it was silent on indoor prostitution. Judges would later rule the change had the effect of legalizing paid sex in private.
That legal gap allowed dozens of suspected brothels to operate in the state's cities and suburbs, including many thinly disguised as Asian spas advertising services such as body rubs and table showers in a weekly newspaper. Until recently, police had struggled to prosecute those involved in the trade.
In 2003, a state judge dismissed charges against prostitutes working just blocks from City Hall. Their lawyer admitted the women offered sex for cash, but he said it didn't matter because indoor prostitution was legal.
Few police departments said they were ready to launch mass raids against the spas, but Pawtucket police Maj. Arthur Martins said his department will investigate at least four suspected brothels operating in his city. School children cross in front of one of them on their way to class.
"It's no secret what's occurring inside these spas," he said.
Attorney General Patrick Lynch said some brothel owners may simply close or stop offering sex instead of risking arrest. Police could enforce the law by sending undercover detectives into suspected brothels, he said.
Critics of the legislation have argued it may penalize destitute or drug-addicted women, including some who may be victims of human trafficking. The new law allows accused prostitutes to be acquitted if they claim they were threatened with violence, had their immigration paperwork stolen or were held against their will.
While individual prostitutes may be arrested and prosecuted, Lynch said his office was primarily interested in targeting criminal ringleaders.
"The point is, we'll go from the person who is selling it, predominantly women. But our target overall is to shut it down," Lynch said. "And the best way to do that is to go after the owners, the pimps, or those that manage these types of operations."
“You’re right, he is a great big male reproductive organ!” —Nicole Kidman watching Will Ferrell’s character on Inside the Actors Studio (Bewitched, 2005)
Dear E. Jean: I’m a 21-year-old virgin fishing for a sugar daddy who’ll launch me into a life of caviar and beautiful clothes. I recently heard about the American grad student auctioning off her virginity; right now, she’s considering bids of up to $3.7 million. I want to attempt the same. It would take care of my college loans, and I could live on the interest and be free to develop my career and talents.
The breaking of the hymen is reportedly painful and disappointing anyway. Why should I waste my purity on a “meaningful” college boyfriend or even a saggy sugar daddy when I can receive a pot of gold all in one go? How would I go about notifying these wealthy barons without attracting attention? —The Hungry Virgin
Hungry, my smarty-pants: Auntie Eeee thinks affectionately of your hymen and wishes the best for it; but it’s unfashionable these days to snatch another young lady’s bidders. (Hymen-auctioning is as old as…well, men invented virginity and they’ve been paying for it ever since.)
So please e-mail Dennis Hof, the proprietor of the World Famous Moonlite BunnyRanch, the legal brothel in Carson City, Nevada, at dennis@bunnyranch .com. He told me on the phone he’d be delighted to put your maidenhead on the block and that “bids could start around $50,000.” Mr. Hof’s the hawker of the nubile grad student you mentioned, Miss Natalie “Deflower-Me-for-Three-Million” Dylan. “She got a book deal, a movie deal, and now we’re working on a new TV show,” Mr. Hof said excitedly. He was in the midst of shooting a “Dr. Drew episode of Celebrity Rehab Presents: Sober House featuring my good friend Heidi Fleiss.” (You know, of course, that Mr. Hof is the Akira Kurosawa of passion. His current show runs on HBO and is called Cathouse.)
“Oh! What’s your new idea for a show called?” I asked him.
“America’s Next Top Virgin,” Mr. Hof said. “So definitely have [Miss Hungry Virgin] e-mail me, and anyone else who’s interested!”
“One last thing,” I said. “Before I hang up: How much money did Miss Dylan and her vagina actually pull in?”
“Unfortunately,” Mr. Hof said, “the highest bidder, at $3.7 million, was an Australian businessman, and he reconciled with his wife. Miss Dylan offered to return the $250,000 deposit. In fact, I called him and said, ‘We’re returning it,’ but he said, ‘No, give it to the girl.’ So she got a quarter of a million dollars, and bids are starting again!”
I can’t tell you how heartened I am to hear men are still such imbeciles. My friend Tracy Quan, always astute about marketing anything between her eyebrows and kneecaps, and the author of the deliciously witty Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, was appalled—shocked!—to hear your idea. “She’s trying to sell something,” Quan said, “that should never be sold. I treasure my memories of my first lover. To be a good businesswoman, you need good romantic experience.”
There are better ways to make a fortune in this world—invent an engine that runs on water, create a cellulite cream that works—without turning yourself into an asshole. So it’s up to you, Miss Hungry. It’s your hymen: Keep it, lend it, groom it, or donate it to a poor woman. But in Auntie Eeee’s opinion, only a flimflamming trollop would sell it.
Italy seems pretty cool. This doesn’t even look like an actual caution sign because “attenzione” means “attention” no? It’s more of a friendly heads up. Sort of like “Hey, stop searching through your iPod for a minute, you’re about to roll up on some hoes.”
THE Obama administration’s drug czar made news last week by saying he wanted to end all loose talk about a “war on drugs.” “We’re not at war with people in this country,” said the czar, Gil Kerlikowske, who favors forcing people into treatment programs rather than jail cells.
Here’s a better idea — and one that will help the federal and state governments fill their coffers: Legalize drugs and then tax sales of them. And while we’re at it, welcome all forms of gambling (rather than just the few currently and arbitrarily allowed) and let prostitution go legit too. All of these vices, involving billions of dollars and consenting adults, already take place. They just take place beyond the taxman’s reach.
Legalizing the world’s oldest profession probably wasn’t what Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, meant when he said that we should never allow a crisis to go to waste. But turning America into a Sin City on a Hill could help President Obama pay for his ambitious plans to overhaul health care and invest in green energy. More taxed vices would certainly lead to significant new revenue streams at every level. That’s one of the reasons 52 percent of voters in a recent Zogby poll said they support legalizing, taxing and regulating the growth and sale of marijuana. Similar cases could be made for prostitution and all forms of gambling.
In terms of economic stimulation and growth, legalization would end black markets that generate huge amounts of what economists call “deadweight losses,” or activity that doesn’t contribute to increased productivity. Rather than spending precious time and resources avoiding the law (or, same thing, paying the law off), producers and consumers could more easily get on with business and the huge benefits of working and playing in plain sight.
Consider prostitution. No reliable estimates exist on the number of prostitutes in the United States or aggregate demand for their services. However, Nevada, one of the two states that currently allows paid sex acts, is considering a tax of $5 for each transaction. State Senator Bob Coffin argues further that imposing state taxes on existing brothels could raise $2 million a year (at present, brothels are allowed only in rural counties, which get all the tax revenue), and legalizing prostitution in cities like Las Vegas could swell state coffers by $200 million annually.
A conservative extrapolation from Nevada to the rest of the country would easily mean billions of dollars annually in new tax revenues. Rhode Island, which has never explicitly banned prostitution, is on the verge of finally doing so — but with the state facing a $661 million budget shortfall, perhaps fully legalizing the vice (and then taking a cut) would be the smarter play.
Every state except Hawaii and Utah already permits various types of gambling, from state lotteries to racetracks to casinos. In 2007, such activity generated more than $92 billion in receipts, much of which was earmarked for the elderly and education. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, has introduced legislation to repeal the federal ban on online gambling; and a 2008 study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimates that legalizing cyberspace betting alone could yield as much as $5 billion a year in new tax revenues. Add to that expanded opportunities for less exotic forms of wagering at, say, the local watering hole and the tax figure would be vastly larger.
Based on estimates from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend at least $64 billion a year on illegal drugs. And according to a 2006 study by the former president of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Jon Gettman, marijuana is already the top cash crop in a dozen states and among the top five crops in 39 states, with a total annual value of $36 billion.
A 2005 cost-benefit analysis of marijuana prohibition by Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist, calculated that ending marijuana prohibition would save $7.7 billion in direct state and federal law enforcement costs while generating more than $6 billion a year if it were taxed at the same rate as alcohol and tobacco. The drug czar’s office says that a gram of pure cocaine costs between $100 and $150; a gram of heroin almost $400; and a bulk gram of marijuana between $15 and $20. Those transactions are now occurring off the books of business and government alike.
As the history of alcohol prohibition underscores, there are also many non-economic reasons to favor legalization of vices: Prohibition rarely achieves its desired goals and instead increases violence (when was the last time a tobacco kingpin was killed in a deal gone wrong?) and destructive behavior (it’s hard enough to get help if you’re a substance abuser and that much harder if you’re a criminal too). And by policing vice, law enforcement is too often distracted at best or corrupted at worst, as familiar headlines about cops pocketing bribes and seized drugs attest. There’s a lot to be said for treating consenting adults like, well, adults.
But there is an economic argument as well, one that Franklin Roosevelt understood when he promised to end Prohibition during the 1932 presidential campaign. “Our tax burden would not be so heavy nor the forms that it takes so objectionable,” thundered Roosevelt, “if some reasonable proportion of the unaccountable millions now paid to those whose business had been reared upon this stupendous blunder could be made available for the expense of government.”
Roosevelt could also have talked about how legitimate fortunes can be made out of goods and services associated with vice. Part of his family fortune came from the opium trade, after all, and he and other leaders during the Depression oversaw agenerally orderly re-legalization of the nation’s breweries and distilleries.
There’s every reason to believe that today’s drug lords could go legit as quickly and easily as, say, Ernest and Julio Gallo, the venerable winemakers who once sold their product to Al Capone. Indeed, here’s a (I hope soon-to-be-legal) bet worth making: If marijuana is legalized, look for the scion of a marijuana plantation operation to be president within 50 years.
Legalizing vice will not balance government deficits by itself — that will largely depend on spending cuts, which seem beyond the reach of all politicians. But in a time when every penny counts and the economy needs stimulation, allowing prostitution, gambling and drugs could give us all a real lift.
Nick Gillespie is the editor in chief of Reason.com and Reason.tv.
(CNSNews.com) -- The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will pay $2.6 million in U.S. tax dollars to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly on the job.
Dr. Xiaoming Li, the researcher conducting the program, is director of the Prevention Research Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit.
The grant, made last November, refers to prostitutes as "female sex workers"--or FSW--and their handlers as "gatekeepers."
"Previous studies in Asia and Africa and our own data from FSWs [female sex workers] in China suggest that the social norms and institutional policy within commercial sex venues as well as agents overseeing the FSWs (i.e., the 'gatekeepers', defined as persons who manage the establishments and/or sex workers) are potentially of great importance in influencing alcohol use and sexual behavior among establishment-based FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract submitted by Dr. Li.
"Therefore, in this application, we propose to develop, implement, and evaluate a venue-based alcohol use and HIV risk reduction intervention focusing on both environmental and individual factors among venue-based FSWs in China," says the abstract.
The research will take place in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi.
Guangxi is ranked third in HIV rate among Chna's provinces--and is a place where the sex business is pervasive, Li said.
“The purpose of the project is to try and develop an intervention program targeting HIV risk and alcohol use,” Li told CNSNews.com. “So basically, it’s an alcohol and HIV risk reduction intervention project."
The researcher outlined three components of the intervention program in the abstract for the project:
“(1) gatekeeper training with a focus on changing or enhancing the protective social norms and policy/practice at the establishment level; (2) FSW (female sex workers) training with a focus on the acquisition of communication skills (negotiating, limit setting) and behavioral skills (e.g., condom use skills, consistent condom use); and (3) semi-annual boosters to reinforce both social norms within establishments and individual skills,” wrote Li.
The doctor said the heart of the study involves “a community-based cluster randomized controlled trial among 100 commercial sex venues in Beihai, a costal tourist city in Guangxi.”
"We anticipate that the venue-based intervention program will be culturally appropriate, feasible, effective and sustainable in alcohol use and sexual risk reduction among FSWs," says the NIH grant abstract.
Li said his study is being done in China rather than the U.S. because prostitution occurs with alcohol use in the United States like it does in China, Americans will be able to benefit from the project’s findings.
“We want to get some understanding of the fundamental role of alcohol use and HIV risk,” he said. “We use the population in China as our targeted population to look at the basic issues. I think the findings will benefit the American people, too.”
Li said minimal research has been conducted on the link between alcohol use and prostitution as it relates to HIV.
“Alcohol has been a part of the commerce of sex for many, many years. Unfortunately, both global-wise (and) in the United States, very few researchers are looking at the complex issue of the inter play between alcohol and the commerce of sex,” he told CNSNews.com.
The grant is one of several “international initiatives” sponsored by the National Institutes of Health.
Ralph Hingson, director of epidemiology and prevention research at NIAA, told CNSNews.com, “There are many Americans who travel to China each year and they should be made aware of the HIV problem.”
Hingson said that Americans will be able to apply the studies findings to the American situation because 1.2 million Americans are currently living with HIV.
Li’s research includes exploration, development, implementation and evaluation. Currently, the project stands at the exploration stage, which the doctor expects to last 18 months.
“The first phase is kind of an exploratory study just trying to get a good understanding of the phenomena in the population of female sex workers in China. The second phase is the program development,” the professor told CNSNews.com.
Phase two will be based on the first year of the study and on “field observations,” he added. The third phase will be the implementation and evaluation of the program.
“Prostitution is illegal in China but it exists in China," Li told CNSNews.com, “but the Chinese government and the society’s attitude towards prostitution is complicated.”
According to Li, there may be as many as 10 million female prostitutes in China with the majority raging from teenagers to those in their 20s.
“We see a lot of governmental initiatives in China, like 100 percent condom distribution promotion programs, so they deliver condoms in those (prostitution) venues," he added.
“The global literature indicates an important role of alcohol use in facilitating HIV/AIDS transmission risk in commercial sex venues where elevated alcohol use/abuse and sexual risk behaviors frequently co-occur,” Li wrote when introducing the project last November.
"We expect that the intervention will improve protective normative beliefs and institutional support regarding alcohol use and HIV protection,” he added.
The NIH proposal hypothesizes that the program will decrease "problem drinking and alcohol-related sexual risk" among prostitutes that participate.
"We hypothesize that the venue-based intervention will change and enhance the protective social norms and institutional policies at the establishment level and such enhancement, accompanied by individual skill training among FSWs, will demonstrate a sustainable effect within commercial sex establishments in decreasing problem drinking and alcohol-related sexual risk, increasing consistent and correct condom use, and reducing rates of HIV/STD infection among FSWs," says the NIH abstract.
In his 11 years in the Washington Legislature, Representative Mark Miloscia says he has supported all manner of methods to fill the state’s coffers, including increasing fees on property owners to help the homeless and taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, most of which, he said, passed “without a peep.”
And so it was last month that Mr. Miloscia, a Democrat, decided he might try to “find a new tax source” — pornography.
The response, however, was a turn-off.
“People came down on me like a ton of bricks,” said Mr. Miloscia, who proposed an 18.5 percent sales tax on items like sex toys and adult magazines. “I didn’t quite understand. Apparently porn is right up there with Mom and apple pie.”
Mr. Miloscia’s proposal died at the committee level, but he is far from the only legislator floating unorthodox ideas as more than two-thirds of the states face budget shortfalls.
“The most common phrase you hear from the states is, ‘Everything is on the table,’ ” said Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with National Conference of State Legislatures, who predicted the worst financial year for states since the end of World War II.
Nowhere is that more true than California, where Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a freshman from San Francisco, made a proposal intended to increase revenue, and, no doubt, appetite: legalizing and taxing marijuana, a major — if technically illegal — crop in the state. “We’re all jonesing now for money,” Mr. Ammiano said. “And there’s this enormous industry out there.”
In Nevada, State Senator Bob Coffin said he would introduce legislation to tax the state’s legal brothels, a fee that would be “based on the amount of activities.” And unlike the Washington porn proposal, which drew the ire of the adult entertainment industry, Mr. Coffin’s plan has the backing of the potential taxpayers, in this case brothel owners who employ women as independent contractors.
“I think they figure if they become part of the tax stream, the less vulnerable they will be to some shift in mores,” he said.
Hawaiian legislators were also considering capitalizing on another potential shift in public attitudes when they proposed legalizing same-sex unions, which supporters say could help the slumping tourism trade.
In Massachusetts, meanwhile, state legislators have introduced a proposal to build two resort-style casinos, including one in Boston. A similar push died last year in the State House of Representatives. But Representative Martin J. Walsh, a Dorchester Democrat and co-author of the new casino bill, said a $2 billion budget deficit might have changed some minds.
“Every state in the nation, including Massachusetts, needs to figure out a way of raising revenues,” Mr. Walsh said. “So we need to be creative.”
Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, said many lawmakers were loath to tap more traditional tax sources during a downturn. “What’s pushing it is this incredible desire to raise revenue,” Mr. Pattison said. “But it’s coupled with the desire not to raise the general and sales and income taxes.”
Whether such proposals can pass is another issue, though each idea has its supporters. Betty Yee, chairwoman of the California Board of Equalization, the state’s tax collector, said that legal marijuana could raise nearly $1 billion per year via a $50-per-ounce fee charged to retailers. An additional $400 million could be raised through sales tax on marijuana sold to buyers.
The law would also establish a smoking age — 21 — effectively putting marijuana in a similar regulatory class as alcohol or tobacco. Marijuana advocates argue that legalization could also decrease pressure on the state’s overburdened prison system and law enforcement officers.
All of which, Ms. Yee said, at least makes the proposal worth talking about in a state with chronic budget problems and a law already on the books allowing the medical use of the drug.
“We know the product is out there, and we know marijuana is available to young people as well, but there’s no regulatory structure in place,” Ms. Yee said. “I think it’s an opportunity to begin the debate.”
Such a debate, of course, does not always favor tax innovators. Several law enforcement groups have already objected to the idea of legal marijuana, which would conflict with federal law.
John Lovell, a lobbyist for several groups of California law enforcement officials, said the plan would create a large, illicit — and thus untaxed — black market, in addition to magnifying substance abuse problems. “The last thing we need is yet another legal substance that is mind-altering,” Mr. Lovell said.
Having taxes on illegal activities, like a seldom-collected tax on marijuana sales in Nevada, also has its drawbacks, said Robert MacCoun, a professor of law and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who has researched drug policy.
“It is very hard to tax illegal vices unless one is comfortable with contradiction,” Mr. MacCoun said. “How can you collect the taxes without documenting the behavior? And how can you document the behavior without making an arrest?”
In Washington State, Mr. Miloscia said he had also received criticism from an array of residents and business owners, who accused him of attacking the First Amendment and other sacred institutions with his pornography proposal.
“I had people call up saying their marriages would fall apart,” said Mr. Miloscia, who represents a suburban district between Tacoma and Seattle. “I didn’t know how passionate people are about this stuff.”
Associated Press Writer= AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Amsterdam unveiled plans Saturday to close up to half of the famed brothels and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major cleanup operation.
The city says it wants to drive organized crime out of the district, and is targeting businesses that "generate criminality," including prostitution, gambling parlors, "smart shops" that sell herbal treatments, head shops and "coffee shops" where marijuana is sold openly.
"I think that the new reality will be more in line with our image as a tolerant and crazy place, rather than a free zone for criminals" said alderman Lodewijk Asscher, one of the main proponents of the plan.
The city said it would also reduce the number of business it sees as related to the "decay" of the center, including peep shows, sex theaters, sex shops, mini supermarkets, massage parlors and souvenir shops.
The city said there were too many of these and it believes some are used for money-laundering by drug dealers and the human traffickers who supply many of the city's prostitutes.
Asscher underlined that the city will remain true to its freewheeling reputation.
"It'll be a place with 200 windows (for prostitutes) and 30 coffee shops, which you can't find anywhere else in the world — very exciting, but also with cultural attractions and you won't have to be embarrassed to say you came," he said.
Under the plan announced Saturday, Amsterdam will spend €30-€40 million ($38-$51 million) to bring hotels, restaurants, art galleries and boutiques to the center. It will also build new underground parking areas for cars and bikes and may use some of the vacated buildings to ease a housing shortage.
Amsterdam already had plans to close many brothels and said last month it might close some coffee shops throughout the city, but the plans announced Saturday go much further.
Asscher said the city would use various techniques to reshape the area, including rezoning, buying out some businesses and offering others assistance in "upgrading" their stores. In the past, the city has shut a number of brothels and sex clubs, relying primarily on a law that allows the closure of businesses with bookkeeping irregularities.
He said the city will also offer help for prostitutes and coffee shop employees who lose their jobs as a result of the plan.
Prostitution, which has spread into several areas of the center, will be allowed only in two areas — notably De Wallen ("The Walls"), a web of streets and alleys around the city's medieval retaining dam walls. The area has been a center of prostitution since before the city's golden shipping age in the 1600s.
Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000, formalizing a long-standing tolerance policy.
Marijuana is technically illegal in the Netherlands, but prosecutors won't press charges for possession of small amounts and the coffee shops are able to sell it openly.
.
All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
View: 
.
Posts
