A crack pipe, or a novelty?

[Newsjock]

Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

The artificial flowers packaged in a palm-sized glass tube cost less than $2, but at a North Seattle convenience store, the clerk keeps them in a Plexiglas case, knowing how easily the popular items can be shoplifted.

... Seattle police say the glass tubes are often used as crack pipes. But while state law prohibits the sale of drug paraphernalia, it would be difficult to prosecute the convenience-store employee without evidence that she sold the tubes to be used as crack pipes.

... In Spokane, city leaders expect later this year to expand an ordinance prohibiting drug paraphernalia to include language specifying such items. They're taking guidance from Pierce County's drug statute, passed in 2005, which includes the phrase "whether useful for nondrug related purposes or not" when defining paraphernalia.

A few years ago in Seattle, a defendant charged with possessing drug paraphernalia argued that his fireproof pen wasn't intended for drug use, but was convicted, Carr said. Deputy city attorneys have successfully prosecuted others who used similar arguments to defend having the novelty rose tubes.

Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/354305_pipes08.html

[mdmc]

1. They are sold in NYS too

:shrug:

[Roon]

2. They sell meth pipes too..

containing a flower.

[angrycarpenter]

3. Those things have been on sale for twenty years.

every time that they have been banned there is a sudden spike in car antennas being broke off and stolen. If they really want put a kink in the crack smoking, put a ban on selling chore boy scrub pads. They can smoke out of any fire resistant tube but the scrub pads are crucial, they cannot do it without them.

[alfredo]

4. Is the scrub pad a way to hold the drug?

[angrycarpenter]

6. I will explain the process

You have a glass tube, A piece of the scrub pad about the size of a raisin, and a piece of stiff wire about 6 inches long. The scrub pad is inserted into the tube to hold the drug while it is being smoked. Residue collects on the sides of the tube. The wire is used to push the scrub pad back and forth in the tube collecting the drug from the sides of the tube so that it can be smoked without the slightest waste. Edison could not have come up with a more ingenious method.

[alfredo]

12. That makes sense.

[Mojorabbit]

5. Oh for cripes sake

aluminum foil and a toilet paper roll will make a grand pipe. Let it be.

[Warpy]

7. Or just aluminum foil formed around a pencil for the stem

I did that one more than once in the 60s when I couldn't find the corncob pipe.

They need to end the drug war. They lost a long time ago. Just make it legal and collect taxes to pay for rehab for the folks who run into trouble.

[hobbit709]

9. Yep, we made a lot of disposable hash pipes back then.

[dysfunctional press]

10. i always used the handle of a wooden spoon...

pencils are too skinny.

[hobbit709]

8. The semantics of the law are fun.

Back in the early 80's, the TX legislature passed a headshop law. You couldn't sell the screens for grinding cocaine-the headshops started selling a "novelty" item-"Aggie Diaphragms". It was illegal to sell little plastic or glass vials-but you could buy all the small plastic sample bottles you wanted. And so on.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Drug criminals have often been known to use their hands to hold pipes

containing illicit substances, which are then generally smoked through an orifice in the human head.

Clearly, we need to outlaw hands and heads.

[HuffleClaw]

13. remember the fuss some years back about the mcdonalds spoons?

that were supposedly used for sniffing cocaine?

i'm also reminded of the ads in gun magazines for 'paperweights' that just happen to resemble brass knuckles.

[onethatcares]

14. "whether useful for nondrug related purposes or not"

pretty much includes the entire litany of stuff in a kitchen. Maybe we need more prisoners, or sumpin? What happened to the United States of America?

[Bandit]

15. Pop cans, bobby pins, paper clips, glad baggies, you name it and it can be used

Make everything illegal and no one will ever use drugs again...honest..

[immoderate]

16. I was charged with possession of a zip-lock bag and a disposable Bic lighter

in Arizona. That's two felony counts.

--IMM

[High Plains]

17. Paraphernalia laws are a crock of shit.

Illegal possession of a pipe? A spoon? A glass tube? Give me a fucking break. God, what an asshole society I live in.

[asdjrocky]

18. This is such USA USA crap.

Addicts are addicts, and trust me, they will always find a way. Hell, they use light bulbs, tin foil and just about anything you can imagine.

By the way, I can still make a pretty mean potato(e) pipe, and give me a beer can, and I can do some amazing things with it. And I didn't even go to college.

The drug policies of this country, just like the health care system, just like law enforcement, just like our foreign policy, is all full of crap.

[lumberjack_jeff]

19. Would that include soda cans?

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=can+pipe

[hootinholler]

20. Maybe match books, glasses and safety pins too.

Man I haven't had hash under glass in a long time.

-Hoot