It has been done. Sounds like the “Booze Cruises” that were popular during prohibition in the US.
There are booze cruises that ply routes across the Baltic sea from the prohibitionist alcohol restrictions found in Sweden. They are very popular with alcoholics, however the antics of these passengers do not make them the favourite tourists in the ports of neighbouring countries.
There is gambling and a range of cheap tobacco products. But whether they get up to anything else on their voyage to oblivion is open to question. Not much high octane glamour with these cheapskates.
Exactly. Plus, discretion is important here. I don’t see much discretion when everyone is doing illegal stuff…right over there! On that boat!
If you have the means you already have access to these things, on your terms, on your playground.
Sent from my LG-US998 using Tapatalk
Exactly what ports are you docking these boats laden with cocaine and hookers at for passenger loading?
Because that will probably be the boats first and last stop in probably most countries in the world.
And i am guessing a boat filled with cocaine and people with money for hookers would be a wonderful target for modern pirates?
So the idea is, it’s a cruise ship. It stops in port and gets a bunch of passengers and ahem, independent contractor staff. It then chugs out just over the limit into international waters.
Another boat comes up with the drugs. Party commences. Latecomers and early leavers board a ferry boat that makes a daily run back and forth. This is also how you keep the ship supplied.
Once it’s time to bring the cruise ship in for cleanup and maintenance, any remaining drugs are offloaded. The boat is pressure washed of any white powder and other residues. It is then brought into port and the cycle continues.
It’s gonna be just offshore a major U.S. city and would have some armed security. Pirates would have a tough time. Not impossible, but tough.
So other smaller boats act like “drug holders”, and those boats stay permanently offshore or get sent back to the host country they are flagged from. Which does have to legalize drugs for this to work, which might be one reason no one has done this.
Why would anyone make this investment knowing the US can and likely would change their laws in order to shut it down?
You’re right. Plus, the elites who control our government - don’t they get to have all the coke and hookers and blackjack they want?
It would work to the extent all the objectionable activities take place (i) on your flag-of-connvenience vessel and (ii) in international waters. Of course the international waters would have to be truly international, i.e., what is called the “high seas” in legal terminology. That is much farther out than one might think: The days of the three-mile zone are over; nowadays you have an entitlement of coastal states to territorial waters of at least twelve miles (plus more depending on the geography of the waters in question; for instance, there are cases where an entire bay or gulf can be claimed as territorial waters by the coastal state even if the opposing ends of the gulf are further apart than 24 miles). And that is only the territorial sea; on top of that, you have the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone, which extend much further than the territorial sea. Coastal state jurisdiction is more limited there than in the territorial waters, but in your scenario the coastal state would likely intervene. Wikipedia has a diagram explaining these concepts.
So you’d have to go really far out to be in truly international waters. Suppose you manage to do that. While there, you’d still be under the jurisdiction of the flag state, but suppose you find a flag of convenience that doesn’t care (which is unlikely - they would soon find themselves under foreign pressure to do something about it, but let’s just assume they don’t). You’d still have to get the hookers and cocaine on your ship, and that would require to call at a harbour every now and then. At that point you’d enter territorial waters of countries that take objection at what you’re doing. You’re saying that at that point you’re not engaged in illicit activities because the prostitution etc is not yet going on (which might be true for prostitution, but certainly not for the possession of drugs); but that doesn’t matter: You’re in the coastal state’s territorial waters, not on the high seas, and that means you’re not benefitting from freedom of navigation, you’re only benefitting from the right of innocent passage. That is much narrower and allows the coastal state to interfere with activities that go beyond innocent passage. Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (which the U.S. has not ratified but is still adhering to as a matter of practice) defines what “innocent passage” is, and your activities can be argued to go beyond. So the coastal state could interfere with what you’re doing as soon as you enter its territorial waters.
You guys all suck. I am dying from alcoholism but would LOVE to go out this way.Even coke on land is too expensive for me.
And that’s the problem with this truly idiotic plan. You know what drugs cost. Do you think that adding a cruise ship with a network of supply vessels to bring drugs aboard will lower the price of drugs; or increase it? It will cost as much as drugs cost, plus as much as a cruise costs.
People who can afford drugs have no problems acquiring them; it’s the poor people scrambling to scrape up their daily dose that have issues. You’ve seen the mug shots of the drug addicts arrested in your local newspapers; do any of them look like they’re taking a lot of cruises?
Would not any government that took offense with the activities on this vessel just simply bar entrance to their territorial waters and harbors for any vessel associated with it? Just because you are in a boat does not give you free access to any harbor in the world. Especially if you are known cohorts of an enterprise that exists to flout your laws. Ferries and supply vessels would be denied access to the ports.
Speaking from a US-centric POV …
Ultimately the gambling cruises exist not because gambling is absolutely illegal. But because it is regulated and this is one of several ways to legally work around/within the regulations. Another way to work around/within gambling regulations is to set up shop in a state or tribal area that has licenced gambling and get that license.
The fundamental difference between gambling and cocaine in the USA is there isn’t a licensing infrastructure where you can sell and consume cocaine as long as you have the proper license.
The fundamental difference between gambling and prostitution in the USA is (other than out-county Nevada) there isn’t a licensing infrastructure where you can sell and consume sex as long as you have the proper license.
If those licenses were available for folks jumping through the correct hoops, I would expect some of the first available hoops would be exactly this: offshore boats. Which might eventually go the way gambling did, and become commonplace on rivers or tribal areas.
Or, just as likely, simply become mostly legal mostly everywhere.
Another thought:
As many have said, the infrastructure needed to provide cocaine or prostitution is much less than to provide a fully functioning casino. So that stuff is more amenable to black market provision. And in fact we see a thriving black market in cocaine and in prostitution to the point that a hefty fraction of our citizens don’t even consider the market black any more. More like light gray.
To be sure, poker happens in basements all over this land. But there aren’t many clandestine places one can go to play slots, blackjack, or craps for real money. The physical plant required is too fat and stationary a target for law enforcement.
Another thought. What happens when your pure as the driven snow coke causes the first cardiac arrest? Is the ship going to have a sickbay?
If you can’t do “coke, blackjack, and hookers” in Las Vegas, then you are doing Las Vegas wrong.
This is just one more complication, sigh. The harder illegal drugs have a high death rate and that would certainly add even more cost and hassle to the endeavor. You’d have to have a medevac chopper available, and that wouldn’t be cheap.
Prostitution is legal in a bunch of countries, and both prostitution and small amounts of drugs are legal in the Czech Republic as far as I know. You could just set up a hotel in Prague to have your coke & sex orgies at, which seems simpler than chartering a ship.
How about an island instead:
“An informative itinerary explained the group would enjoy a bonding orgy together on the first day.”
…Nice.
And apparently this island is in Columbia?! If you can’t get all blow you can snort in Columbia, you’re doing it wrong. And I’m sure you could organize a few games of blackjack.
Welp, that’s how to do it.
That sounds like a great idea for a blackjack table! With hookers! And blow! In fact, forget the blackjack!
Bonding orgies huh? I hate bonding orgies. In the dark. That moment you realize that the hand holding your jewel sack is large and calloused. And it won’t let go.