[Dragaera] Gambling/Drug Use in a Jhereg Reign

[Jon Lincicum]

I've been pondering a question raised by one of the conversations in /Five Hundred Years After/, as it applies to an Emperor of the House Jhereg.

Since we've never actually seen a Jhereg reign, I was wondering whether certain activities (Gambling, drug use, prostitution, etc) would be more heavily regulated in a Jhereg reign (to boost profits for illicits dealers in these activities), or less regulated (to avoid legal problems and prosecutions for members of House Jhereg). 

To the right:

Garland's plot included the banning of substances like Dreamgrass and Murchin in order to drive up prices, which seemed to offer a way for Jhereg dealers to greatly increase their profits by selling these substances--so it would make sense that under a Jhereg Emperor, this may be a common practice.

To the left:

The particular Jhereg that Garland explains this to seems to be unfamiliar with the practice of making something illegal in order to artificially increase demand, so it may not be a practice that the Jhereg had thought of before.

Or it could just be that the Jhereg that Garland was dealing with was somewhat dense. 

It's potentially an intriguing irony that Jhereg profits might actually *increase* when their House goes out of power (in favor of the Iorich, immediately after, who are sticklers for enforcing the law). Or maybe the irony is that an Iorich emperor might actually re-legalize some of these activities when he assumes power in order to deal with overt Jhereg corruption.

Any thoughts?

Majikjon