Drugs and Money

Managing the Drug Trade and Crime Money in Europe

Michael Levi, Petrus C. van Duyne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134294244
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Social Sciences

The phenomenon of psycho-active drugs, and our reactions to them, is one of the most fascinating topics of the social history of mankind. Starting with an analysis of the 'policy of fear' in which law enforcement is 'haunted' by drug money, Drugs and Money offers a radical reconsideration of this highly contentious issue.
In this intriguing book, Petrus C. van Duyne and Michael Levi expose an ever-unfolding series of problems:

• the proliferation of mind-influencing substances
• the complications of international drug regulation
• the interaction between markets and economic actors, with the consequent amassing of huge amounts of crime-money.

The social, cultural and economic aspects of this crime-money are explored, alongside the ongoing threat it poses to the legitimate economy and the state.

1 The mind, drugs and the policy of fear

Trust and fear are important components in the development of modern state building. Granted, being ‘soft’ components, they have received less attention than battles and revolutions. Nevertheless, they are important underlying currents, driving subjects and rulers to these very battles and revolutions often resulting in new forms of government. The content of most constitutions, beginning with that of the US and in Europe, after the French Revolution, can be viewed as codifications of distrust on the part of the citizens – usually the better-off – towards the state, personalized in the arbitrariness of the absolute monarchies of the anciens régimes. This applied particularly to the area of finances, taxation and the judiciary. The emerging liberal bourgeoisie preferred a state acting as a night watchman, but this aloof role did not last long, if it ever existed in its pure form (Mosse, 1974). Gradually the authorities were empowered to design laws to further societal aims and to protect the citizens against new threats to their acquired interests. Depending on the social and economic backgrounds, such interests concerned small landholders, as in France, the ‘Junker-estates’ in Prussia, the powerfully developed industrial entrepreneurs as in Britain or Belgium, or the staggering merchant classes in the Netherlands.

It is interesting to investigate to what extent fear as a society-shaping motive contributed to the changing, mainly increasing role of the state and its institutions. It depends on who fears what. In 1848, fear of the mob drove many autocratic thinking monarchs in the German Länder and the King of the Netherlands to seek an alliance with the bourgeoisie and allow liberal constitutions. In the Netherlands this led to the present form of parliamentary monarchy, while in the German states the fear waned and authoritarian rule was in most cases restored. This implies that the explanatory power of the factor ‘fear’ is not one-dimensional. It depends how it is managed (Chambliss, 1994). Fear is a state of mind which can be aroused, strengthened, nursed and maintained, not as a self-propelling autonomous process, but by interested parties, like the church, the bureaucracy and the ruling elites (if any) which are their main stakeholders. An example is fear of deviant or non-conforming behaviour or attitudes, which do not directly victimize other people, but are nevertheless considered a subversive challenge to social stability. The fear of enlightened revolutionary ideas and ‘mob rule’ in the era of Restoration (1815–1848) requested a tough stance from the authorities. Later in the century, the rising working class held the nineteenth-century elites in Europe as much in its grip as did the fear of communism in Europe after 1945 (Hamerow, 1983). However, the states differed in their reactions: repression of labour movements, partial reform to take the wind out of the socialist sails, as in Germany (Gall, 1997), or allowing a gradual emancipation as in the Netherlands (as long as the rule of the elite and the monarchy were not jeopardized).

As the English political philosopher Hobbes recognised in his construct of Leviathan, to soothe fears, many citizens are willing to trust the authorities to take strong measures, which may encroach on their liberties. Whether such fears have any foundation is of little importance. What counts politically is the belief in the projected threat, to which the authorities will only rarely respond by playing it down, at least in the contemporary era of media-fuelled populist ‘law and order’.¹ Except where this might reflect badly on their stewardship, either for political popularity or in pursuit of some other objective, they usually will respond by strengthening the ‘security apparatus’. In the beginning of the nineteenth-century, the security apparatus consisted mainly of the army, which was deployed to quench the frequent riots, often directed against the economic pressures arising from industrialization (Hamerow, 1983; Stearns, 1975). Gradually, due to the extension of professional policing and the penal law system, the response was directed to enhance procedural and substantive law and penal sanctions. This has been the usual dominant response to religious, social or nationalistic unrest. Of course, this is not an explanation of all criminal law developments, nor an equal driving force in all jurisdictions. Parallel to strengthening the law enforcement system was the development of penal reform, leading (for a while) to more humanity and leniency. But in times of unrest, as with socialist agitation, separatist movements or even suffragette activism, the authorities’ response was to resort to strengthening law enforcement powers.

In this chapter we will elaborate the hypothesis of an intriguing penal law interaction concerning the supposed threat emanating from the use of mind-influencing substances, which the authorities worldwide (and sections of the public) have considered to be a major and a serious threat. The chosen response has been the prohibition of these substances, maintained by penal law enforcement. A part of this interaction concerns the consequence of this penalizing in the circumstance of a continued and even increasing demand, namely the subsequent development of an underground market of illicit production, traffic and the ensuing proceeds and profits of crime.² We will see that these criminal finances have evoked an independent fear. As the word ‘psychoactive’ denotes, such substances affect the mind in a way that is judged negatively. The justification of authorities to meddle in the individual’s choice to consume these substances rests in its assumed right to have some say over the ‘correct state of mind’ of its adult and juvenile citizens. This is not a ‘blessing’ characteristic of modern times or the result of evil dictatorship, but a concern which has long historical roots.

1.1 The concern for the ‘correct’ state of mind

The human being may be the only animal species that displays an intrinsic preoccupation with its own mind. Not in a deep metaphysical or philosophical sense, but in the more mundane meaning of busying themselves with how they feel and experience things. In this regard, humankind represents an exceptional species, which is highly susceptible to a state of mind called boredom. In fact, humans are perhaps the only bored animals. That state of mind is addressed by a restless stimulus seeking (Zuckerman, 1980). Whether one values this drive as positive or negative, it has driven humankind to conquer (or ruin) this planet, creating art as well as war. Since time immemorial, this explorative conduct satisfied the need for stimuli to some extent. But alongside these ventures, people discovered, by trial and error, other stimuli derived from the products of nature. Yeasted grapes and other fruits proved to be alcoholic, which came to be highly appreciated.³

Since their discovery, mind-influencing substances have continued to play a particular role in stimulus-seeking conduct. Depending on cultural values or interests of the state, many societies have tried and succeeded in socializing or regulating their consumption. The most widespread mind-influencing substance, alcohol, has evoked very diverse responses, like most other drugs. It has been prohibited in the Muslim territories, while in most other states the authorities have made the best of its consumption by taxing it. Other substances like cannabis, coca, opium, tobacco and all caffeinated beverages were known for ages, albeit in their weak, raw forms. For a long time their use appeared to be too limited, for example restricted to religious ceremonies, or sufficiently socialized, to attract the disapproval of the authorities. If sufficiently popular they are bound to attract the greed of the authorities, who will tax them. As most substances are not inherently good for the human body, their use may also be prohibited or made unattractive by imposing prohibitive taxes. That is a matter of policy choice. In this regard, western society at first imported or invented a variety of mind-influencing substances, like brandy, opium or tobacco. In a later stage the social and political appreciation of some of those substances changed, leading subsequently to political decisions to restrict their use, with far reaching consequences (Courtwright, 2001).

For centuries the correlation between the mind-influencing substances and the state of mind did not bother the authorities of the slowly unfolding European nation states: the economy was too frugal and primary living conditions too meagre to allow for more than mere survival of the masses (Slicher van Bath, 1987). However, this does not mean that the authorities were indifferent to the mental states of their subjects, even if they were starving. The Christian territories, and emerging nation states especially, developed an obsessive desire to eliminate wrong, ‘devilish’ beliefs, which were supposed to have taken possession of the soul of a person. In fact, before and during the Age of the Reformation, Europe felt the ironclad fist of the first ‘thought police’, whose task was to detect and suppress religious deviations: the Inquisition (Baigent and Leigh, 1999). True, this bloody mind-control was just a malicious peak in an ongoing church–state alliance to keep spiritually deviating subjects down.⁴ This was not an exclusive Roman Catholic policy. Even in the Protestant states, where the inquisition itself was abolished, the concern for the correct religious state of mind remained a concern for the authorities.⁵ Many dissenting, more ‘fundamental’ (or ‘pure’) Protestants felt compelled to leave and migrated to the North American continent, where they added their flavour of spiritual intolerance, till the present day.

Being preoccupied with religious deviations, the ecclesiastical and secular authorities showed few interests in the (ab)use of the most prevalent psychoactive substance: alcohol. Why should they? Even if the abuse was chronic and widespread, there was no interest in developing an ‘anti-alcohol’ policy in pre-industrial society. As a taxed commodity, it was (and remains) a valuable source of income, while the impurity of most water supplies at that time induced many consumers to drink alcoholic beverages from dawn to sunset. The salty quality of virtually all foodstuffs increased this universal and ‘oceanic thirst’ (Slicher van Bath, 1987). Lacking cold storage and preservatives other than salt, everything was salted: butter, porridge, fish and meat, to mention just a few daily commodities.⁶ The poor could quench their thirst with diluted beer, the rich with wine. After the sixteenth century, Dutch genever, gin, schnapps and other spirits were added to the alcoholic menu. Even if this led to widespread drunkenness, landed interests, which benefited from the growing grain-for-gin production, did not further effective measures to stem this state of national alcoholism. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, gin shops advertised: ‘drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, and straw for nothing’. After a petition in 1736 by the Middlesex justices to restrict the excessive sales of spirits, Parliament adopted measures to restrict the sales of gin and other ‘spirituous liquors’. The Gin Act was followed by riots, while the aimed reduction in the number of small gin shops was met with wholesale evasion (Rudé, 1970).

Despite this indifference, various social and economic developments provided increasing counterweights to this phenomenon. The most important counterweight may have come from the change in life rhythm imposed by industrialization since its take-off in the last quarter of the eighteenth century in Britain and in North Western Europe during the nineteenth century (Dillard, 1967). Factories with their expensive machinery required a regular working rhythm, which deviated strongly from the rural, semi-planned plodding of farmers and artisans. One could no longer turn up late, let alone turn up unstable with a hangover on the mechanized work floor. The safety of the machines (and, perhaps secondarily, of the workers) required discipline, which was incompatible with the taste for gin.⁷

Alongside, but usually following, this economic development was the Christian moral crusading against ‘bad habits’ in general and bad substances in particular. In the Christian framework of the nineteenth century, one may summarize this as a fight against wicked godlessness, gambling and drinking. To this trio may be added sexual laxity. Did this moral crusade have an effect in reducing the ‘sinful’ abuse of alcohol? Comparing the declining trend in the use of alcohol during the whole of the nineteenth century and the moments of the emergence of these moral initiatives, it appears that the latter followed rather than anticipated this reduction (Gerritsen, 1993). The moral crusading was most effective in creating an ethical framework in which already ongoing behavioural changes could be moulded and furthered. However, it seems more likely that apart from the industrial working rhythm, additional economic and material changes provided a more important drive to the reduction of alcoholic abuse. Water works began to provide clean water, and beverages like coffee and tea became cheaper and more widely available, though still a luxury for the poor. Also the appalling housing conditions improved gradually (Gauldie, 1974). Instead of fleeing a damp and cramped house to find comfort with a brandy in the alehouse, there was an alternative now and the lamentation ‘father please, oh drink no more’, started to make sense. The housewife could serve tea or coffee instead (Gerritsen, 1993). This sounds idyllic, but these material conditions and educational pressure from the enlightened bourgeoisie and ‘elite’ workers’ circles contributed to Christian sobriety and a more homely life.

Industrial, social and political developments, particularly the division between state and church, furthered the relaxation of the official religious mind control, a trend which had begun in the eighteenth century Enlightenment. This did not imply an indifference to the moral state of citizens. Fear of riotous and anarchic behaviour stemming from seditious, immoral ideas was too deeply rooted in the consciousness of the aristocracy and propertied classes to let developments take their own course. Apart from that, not only fear, but also philanthropy moved part of the industrial elite to further improvements in the public domain. On the one hand, during the nineteenth century most industrializing states assumed responsibility (a) for national schooling, regularly conflicting with the Catholic church (Droz, 1971), and – very important – (b) for public health and housing (Hamerow, 1983). On the other hand, many of the moral and educational tasks (for the lower classes) were carried out by charity institutions. The well-off classes developed a broad network for the improvement of the material and moral state of the labouring classes and those who fell into sin, either because of licentiousness or because of alcohol. The gradual emancipation of the working classes entailed that they did not remain the object of paternalistic concern. Depending on the speed of industrialization, the growth of the urban population and the political system, labour cooperatives, associations and later unions developed, which took over many of the aims of philanthropists, apart from economic and political emancipation. It is interesting to observe that the movement against alcohol abuse did not become a major issue within the labour movement in Europe. Attempts were made to put it on the agenda, but it led to much disagreement: was working-class poverty the result of alcoholism or did the poor workers resort to alcohol to escape the depression of poverty? Fighting alcohol abuse remained a moral mission of individuals and individual associations in France, Germany and Belgium (Sournia, 1990, ch. 8).

The role of the churches in fighting alcoholism, rather considered a sin than an illness, varied. In general, the Catholic Church’s attitude towards alcoholic abuse, or sin in general, was (and is) less strict. The temperance societies found a more fertile soil in the Protestant regions, particularly in the US, than in the Catholic ones (Sournia, 1990, ch. 8). Though official ‘mind control’ had practically stopped,⁸ and political secularization had become the norm in most industrialising countries, the concern for the moral (i.e. Christian) state of mind and soul did not wane. It would set the interpretative framework for assessing ‘bad habits’, i.e. the display of unwanted conduct like gambling or the use of psychoactive substances. This moral framework cast its shadow on the coming policy regarding these substances and the continued use and ensuing traffic. But first we will discuss the growing importance of the professional medical class in the area of public health in general and the development of the drug issue.

1.2 Drugs, public health and the modern state

There was a continued concern not only for the moral state of mind and soul. The state of the health of the population at large moved gradually, but unavoidably within the orbit of the responsibilities of the authorities. The onset of an organized concern for the health of the (common) people was to a large extent determined by worried benefactors, some of them industrialists aiming to relieve the sorry plight of the working classes. Being men of influence, they did not restrict their actions to improving local conditions, like housing, schools, fresh water supply and sewerage, but tried to translate their philosophies into legislation. In the heyday of the liberal state they, together with the rising medical profession, succeeded in extending the responsibility of the state to the health of its citizens. In this endeavour they found spiritual support in the evangelical revival and its new humanitarianism towards the poor, as well as more earthly awareness that the recurrent cholera epidemics did not stop at the poor man’s door. The sanitary movement in western Europe led to the introduction of officers of health, as in Liverpool in 1847 (Parry and Parry, 1976). At the end of the nineteenth century, a fully fledged public health policy had been developed in the industrialized states of Europe and North America.

An important component of this public health policy concerned the regulation of the administration of medicines. Part of medication always consisted of all sorts of painkillers, of which the most prominent in that time span was opium. Here our story begins in real earnest.

At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when pharmaceutical knowledge was still in its infancy, opium was widely used as a magical healer. It was used against pain, cholera, sleeplessness, rumbling stomachs and running bowels, or to keep children quiet. It was widely available, prescribed by doctors (and quacks), who prepared their own medicines, as well as at the local chemists for as little as a penny (Parssinen, 1983). The consumption of all sorts of beverages and pills, containing an often unpredictable amount of opium of uncertain purity, raised concern, but in the absence of other therapeutic agencies, it was an invaluable cheap medicine. In the absence of an affordable medical service, it was the ‘Victorian aspirin’ for the self-medication of the working classes.

Given its widespread availability, opium was also used for non-therapeutic purposes. This non-therapeutic use ranged from overworked mothers and baby-minders putting children to sleep, suppressing appetite (preferred to a crying hungry child), to a cheap replacement for alcohol. In other words, it became a euphoric agent, to forget the misery of industrial life in the slums (Berridge and Edwards, 1987; Parssinen, 1983) or to fight the boredom to which many of the better-off ladies were condemned (Courtwright, 1982). In the UK the escapist or, as it was called at the time, ‘stimulant’ use of opium was widespread in certain depressed areas like the Fen district, the marshy, damp areas of Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire. This stimulant use by the working class, rather than the casualties caused by impure or too strong opium tincture (laudanum), raised serious concerns. The opinion that drugs should not be for recreational consumption contributed to the Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1868, which first regulated opium and most other poisons. It was a compromise Act with limited impact, but for the pharmacists, who were designated exclusively to dispense the drugs, it was a milestone of recognition as a profession (Parssinen, 1983). Parliament showed...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Drugs and Money
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Tables and figures
• Preface
• 1 The mind, drugs and the policy of fear
• 2 The unfolding of illegal drug markets in Europe
• 3 Commerce, constraints and enterprise features
• 4 Drug markets in action
• 5 The volume of drug money and money management
• 6 The craft of laundering and the counter-reaction
• 7 Haunted by drugs or money?
• References