"Is fun!" cries Nini. Leap! Her mother attempts to just hold her after catching her again but she struggles and kicks and gets away to climb the chair again.

Hithui looks tempted but makes no moves towards the furniture.

Nini pauses the next time she has her feet on the floor and tilts her head at him.

"Mom said no. Watching's fun."

"Come onnnnn."

"Please?" he says to his mother. 

"It'd be a very bad habit, if you did it on the boat -"

"Won't -" and he switches languages - "I won't jump on the boat, just at Nini's - Nini wants me to -"

"Yes, she does. Okay."

Gleeful Hithui clambers up onto the table to dive off into his waiting parents' arms.

Yay jumping off furniture!!!

That afternoon the music hall is easy to find by the sound of a thousand Elves singing together.

About a third of the red adults go. The kids stay home.

Do any of them want to speak?

Not first!!!

Some Elves will speak first then! Someone in favor says that being intoxicated at home doesn't harm anyone and has no business being illegal in the first place. Someone against says that intoxicated people might leave their houses and cause property damage or crash a boat or something, or might lock themselves into their house to prevent that and therefore be in danger from a fire or medical emergency. Someone points out in questioning that they'd be liable for those damages and there's no rule against sailing in unsafe conditions or anything. "Sure," the speaker says, "but that isn't a problem, and we'd probably make a rule if we were rescuing people from the ocean all the time."

...a red tentatively accepts the mic. "Have, ah, you considered... that addicts will just... break... the rule?"

Elves had not considered this. There is a murmur of consternation.

The red looks a little alarmed about the consternation.

More people want to speak, now that that point has been made! They think it'd clearly be very damaging to the social fabric to have rules some people were not able to follow! Also people with drug addictions being also the poorest people because of getting fined a lot wouldn't improve anything!

...someone else tentatively says that people usually pick up drugs to cope and might taper off with less to cope with but once it's an addiction it might just stick. Someone else says they are used to self-policing and can probably keep intoxicated people from getting out of their part of the village.

Getting people treatment for drug addiction is obviously a good idea, someone can write in to Brithombar about that. If intoxicated people hurt other refugees that's obviously just as much of a problem as if they hurt the Elves. Their being unlikely to damage boats is a consideration, though, it reduces the scope of potential property damage. 

Nobody here knows how to boat.

Yes, but they will probably learn eventually, and boats are the most expensive things around by a lot.

Well, if they keep the intoxicated people in their neighborhood they will not get on any boats. They really do know how to self-police and had to do it all the time on their old planet.

What does self-policing look like -

Well, if someone had gotten high and threatened to leave the red district without the appropriate passes or at the wrong time of day they would probably be grabbed and dunked in the fountain (there are several communities of reds collected together here; in this other one it's "slapped around a bit", in that one "forcefed this pseudomedicinal drink") until they could look you in the eye and respond to yes or no questions, then they haul you home, or, if possible, to your grandmother. In their erstwhile country disappointing your grandmother is the sort of thing that will make even an intoxicated person very abashed.

...and everyone involved prefers this to getting fines?

...everyone involved preferred this to calling in the cops and having the culprit and half a dozen bystanders beaten with sticks. They can maybe adapt the procedures since nobody here seems to have sticks.