There was already a thread started on this subject, but because it did not pass Mr. Offer's inspection he came to the conclusion that it was "useless horsehit" (direct quote) and moved it to THIS THREAD. As we are playing in Max's park and Joe has been designated by Max to referee our little games, I'm bowing to Joe's authority and taking his suggestion to start a new thread on the same subject. If he wants to delete the first paragraph of this post, that's okay with me.   

Here is a link to a news story about The Justice Department arresting 55 people in a nationwide crackdown of "narcotics paraphernalia" (mostly Marijuana pipes) sales on the Internet. CLICK HERE.

Here's my opinion on the subject:

At least half of the people in The United States have smoked Marijuana at some time in their lives, and many do so now. Most of those people are not low-life stoner pot-heads. They are responsible members of society who like to slightly alter their state of consciousness using a substance which our government has deemed so harmful as to declare it illegal, but which is, in fact, less harmful than alcohol, a legal substance. Furthermore, our government has determined that any material or device which it feels has been produced for the purpose of ingesting Marijuana into one's system is also illegal. I find the whole idea of declaring such devices illegal absolutely absurd. As one who smoked Marijuana in his youth, I can tell you that I made pipes from toilet paper cores, Bic pen barrels, PVC pipe and assorted plumbing fittings. I also rolled joints in toilet paper, tampon wrappers, credit card receipts and onionskin typing paper. My point is that it is useless to declare a particular item illegal because of a use to which it may be put when there are an infinite number of perfectly legal items that will serve the same function.

I particularly feel that the Justice Department is wasting its resources on pursuing such relatively trivial transgressions. In the current climate, their busting people for selling bongs is the equivalent of the cops stopping someone for running a stop sign while there are rival gangs having a shoot-out in the intersection.

Most importantly, I am extremely concerned over the fact that the business records and computer hard-drives of the people who were arrested are now in the hands of The Justice Department. That means that for anyone who ever purchased anything from them, Mr. Ashcroft and his crew now have their credit card numbers, names, and addresses and that they have been identified as drug users and are subject to surveillance. I doubt that even someone as reactionary as Ashcroft would think that a record of someone purchasing a hash-pipe on the Net would be grounds for a search warrant, and I certainly hope that no judge would sign a warrant based on such evidence. But they can certainly monitor your comings and goings, find out who your visitors are from their license plates and generally snoop around in your life until you make a mistake that they can nail you for. And some of the folks who made such purchases may well be our own friends and family members.

Bruce

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Makes a lot more sense, Bruce. Here's your message from the "Purple Haze" thread.
-Joe Offer-

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Thread #56705   Message #899468
Posted By: Bee-dubya-ell
26-Feb-03 - 05:31 PM
Thread Name: BS: Miscellaneous Iraq- Feb 2003
Subject: RE: BS: Terror Alert Level: Purple Haze!

Yeh, I heard about those busts on NPR. Wonder how many convenience stores are going to stop selling cigarette papers for fear of getting popped.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg! Now that they've got all the bongs and papers off the market they will be enacting these new laws next week:

1) Toilet paper and paper towels will be sold without their traditional cardboard core, since such cores can be used to make Marijuana pipes.

2) All tampons must be wrapped in plastic, not thin paper, as it is possble to use such paper in lieu of regular rolling papers for making Marijuana cigarettes.

3) All ballpoint pens will be made in such a manner that it is impossible to dismantle them and thus obtain a metal or plastic tube which can be used for making a Marijuana pipe.

4) The possession of brass plumbing fittings, especially faucet aereator screens, by anyone other than a licensed plumber shall be illegal since such fittings can be used for making Marijuana pipes.

5) It shall be illegal for anyone to sell or possess prepackaged brownie mix as it can be used to make Marijuana brownies. (It shall still be legal to make brownies from scratch, since most stonies can't keep their shit together long enough to follow that complicated a recipe anyway.)

6) The possession of dried corncobs shall be illegal since they can be used for making Marijuana pipes.

Bruce