Police take aim at glass pipes

Boston Globe ^ | 5/11/03 | Jenn Abelson

[RJCogburn]

The water pipe - or bong, as it's commonly known - cost $600 at Sugar Daddy's Smoke Shop and had mouthpieces to accommodate six people simultaneously.

Customers bought that pipe and others like it to smoke tobacco, said Rich Franklin, who owns the Kenmore Square store.

[RJCogburn]

Boston Police make us all safer.......

[Enterprise]

To make you even safer they are confiscating all plastic straws, razor blades, and matches because these things can all be used in connection with drug usage.

[glorgau]

This all started when MacDonalds changed the design of their coffee stirrers.

[dighton]

''I sell everything for tobacco,'' he said, ''and that's what everybody talks about when they come in here - whether it's for water pipes, hand-held ones, or dry pieces.''

........

Franklin said he's ''wicked strict'' in making sure customers aren't buying his products for illegal purposes . . . .

If you believe this, I have a yacht berth for sale in Pumpkin Center.

[battlegearboat]

I'm shocked. I'm shocked and saddened that people are using their bongs to smoke pot.

All this time I was under the impression that people were smoking tobacco in their bongs.

I think we need to boycott Walgreens until they get rid of their Doctor Graybills and pipe cleaners. Also lighters and matches should be outlawed.

[I_dmc]

i>This all started when MacDonalds changed the design of their coffee stirrers.

Prompting a national fetish of having long pinkie fingernails.

[eno_]

And prompting Drug Warriors to bother guitarists.

How much police time was wasted on this and who should be sued to recover?

[Calvin Locke]

Paper money too. Don't forget that they can be rolled in to the shape of straws.

[CtBigPat]

They want to ban glass pipes and at the same time hand out free needles. Strange times we live in.

[capt. norm]

The question is much like the one Mason asked Dixon:

"Where do we draw the line?"

[SSN558]

"At Hempest, where glass pipes that sell for between $10 and $1,000 make up about 10 percent of the business... although fewer than before the officers visited.

This is just silly. Pipes have existed for thousands of years"

I can see legitiment complaint with the store owners on the bong issue. Bongs were originally used for smoking tobacco and if we exclude the U.S. that is still their primary use in the world.

Glass Pipes that is another story. Has anybody ever heard of a glass pipe being used for anything other than crack or crank smoking ? If customers of these stores start with his $10 to $1000 glass pipes it will only be a short time until they are using baby food jars and test tubes as their money runs out. When someone says, "he or she is addicted to the glass dick", you know what they mean.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

"I sell everything for tobacco,'' he said, ''and that's what everybody talks about when they come in here - whether it's for water pipes, hand-held ones, or dry pieces."

Yeah, and I'm Peter Rabbit.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

I've never forgotten the bong that I saw in a headshop in Hampton, VA about 10 years ago. It was about 4 feet long and had a long strip of cardboard down inside and had "TOBACCO MASTER" written on it in inch-high letters. I was telling my Navy buddies with me that if anybody here believes that that monstrosity is for smoking pipe tobacco, I'd clean the floor with my tongue.

[bigfootbob]

"I was telling my Navy buddies with me that if anybody here believes that that monstrosity is for smoking pipe tobacco, I'd clean the floor with my tongue."

How did the floor cleaning affect your taste buds? Did they ever recover? That was a silly bet. We have a large middle eastern immigrant population in America that uses rather elaborate pipes called hookas to smoke tobacco. No I'm not stoopid enough to believe every bong sold is used for tobacco, probably only a small minority, but to make a brash statement like that at the expense of your tongue, was....

[ItisaReligionofPeace]

Thank god these people won't be using marijuana now. Let's arrest them all and throw them in jail...and then, when a serious drug addict is looking for help and needs a place to stay during detox, let's tell them that there aren't enough beds and they'll have to go somewhere else. Friggin marvelous.

[gcruse]

Lungs --- the dual use, marijuana friendly, THC-absorbing drug paraphrenalia of choice in the majority of breathers surveyed by John Ashcroft's Criminal Justice Opinion Bureau.

Do you know someone with lungs?
Don't be a terrorist enabler.

1-888-STOP-SIN

They'll thank you for it, when they get out.

For a Drug Free America

[Malsua]

As if taking away legally bought for, taxes paid bongs makes people stop smoking pot.

I mean,

"Duuude, let's roll one"
"Naw man, can't do it, the pigs closed down the smoke shop"
"Dude, that's gnarly. I guess we're going to have to give up smoking dope"

I guess they're going to ban Cigars next? After all, who hasn't seen a kid buying "Blunts".

I don't smoke dope(Ok, I did twice back in 1984) or do any drugs, but this is just assinine.

If they ban rolling papers, you'll see run on notebook paper. If they ban notebook paper, you'll see a run on broadleaf ferns.

This is the wrong end of the drug market to attack.

We found a pipe behind the machine shop that was made out of plumbing pieces. I suppose you're not going to be able to buy plumbing next.

idiocy.

-Mal

[Kip Lange]

If you believe this, I have a yacht berth for sale in Pumpkin Center.

Hehehe, you beat me to it. Yeah. Right. When was the last time you ever saw a tobacco smoker use one of those things? Not that I want to demonize MJ smokers, but c'mon, puh-LEEZE! Heh.

[Enterprise]

I forgot to mention spoons and cotton balls too. These are major items in the use of heroin, and for our safety, they must all be confiscated.