BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 10:37 AM

That's right Bobert. I was hoping you could find a nice nickname to make peace with our new GUEST. It looked like an opportunity to get nominated for the Mudcat Peace Prize. You could have moved on from there to get Fred Miller and me to quit lobbing bombs at each other.

Industrial uses for hemp, like medical marijuana - just another scam.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: *daylia*
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 12:22 PM

leprechaun, retailers in my small Canadian cities have been selling hemp paper, clothing, bags and wallets, string for crafts, hand lotion and oils for a few years now. I don't buy the stuff - I find the clothing rough and itchy, and I don't like the smell of the cosmetic products. Historically though, hemp has been used for a myriad of industrial purposes, most importantly making rope (hence the old saying 'smoking rope' which is found in Mark Twain's novels etc.).

Use of industrial hemp declined in the 20th century as new and improved synthetic fibers etc. became available. So you're probably right - making these products available again today could be just a tactic of the pro-legislation lobby. But that doesn't make the industrial use of the plant a 'scam', does it?

Using hemp to make paper sure beats clearcutting the forests for wood imo!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 03:18 PM

"Cannabis" is really the same word as "canvas", because that's what they made it out of. George Washington used to grow hemp, in quite a big way.

But he wasn't just growing it for the fibre, it appears. There are records extant about his arranging to destroy the male plants in the harvest, at times, which is what you do when you want to make sure the female plants produce lots of resin instead of seeds. For making rope, the male palnts are actually better.

You had a better class of George in charge over there, in those days.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: GUEST, herc
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 03:44 PM

Qualification: He wanted to *separate* the male plants, which make a better fiber. However, his (August 7, 1765) diary *implies* that he may have wanted to separate them before fertilization, which *implies* a desire to potentially increase the pharmacological efects of the female plants.
http://ebook.iforgot.ca/index.cfm?page=details&Data.ArticleID=97

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 06:59 PM

Lepper:

Think you and Fred just need to sit down and smoke a little peace pipe....

Oh, I fogot, they're illegal...

Nevermind...

I'll think of somethin' else...

Ahhhhh, peace brownies?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: GUEST,Ruleboy
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 11:42 PM

Daylia:

marked by decay and decline fits perfectly.

Todays pot has far more THC, Thera-Hydra-cannabinol than the original wild growing stuff. The the wine, caffiene, sweets, chocolate and candles and stuff is not produced by terrorists and they are not illegal. However overuse can be harmful to your health.

Someday cigarettes will be outlawed and people will be puffing them clandestinely and claiming they can't hurt you.


Kaleb:

It means it is legal and you could not be prosecuted. Do you live in a democracy? If so work toward having it changed.

There are dumb laws in the US pertaining to crap like eating peanuts on Sunday in public for example. Im am sure they could be changed if it was worth the effort but it is ignored. The laws on Marijuana are of a little more serious nature and are not ignored.

At one time there were no laws on MJ use and even on Cocaine. Coca Cola was invented by a druggist in Atlanta who added Cocaine to some syrups. It was not carbonated back then. It was like a tonic and a pick meup. You could buy Opium over the counter in the form of Laudnum.

Eventaully Opium, MJ and Cocaine were seen as dangerous substances and laws were passed against them. What can I say besides follow the laws until you can change them, If pot smokers were such intellectual giants as they claim to be, it should be a simple matter to enter government and work to change the law. If they do, by then they are of an age and position to realize that pot is bad so they leave the law as is.

If you don't believe me just Ozzy Osborne.

Rule Boy

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: *daylia*
Date: 04 Mar 03 - 11:57 PM

Okay Ruleboy, you have it your way, and I'll have it mine. Why not?

*yawn*

"Whatever gets you thru the night
it's alright ... it's alright ..."

(Always liked John better than Ozzy).

Sweet dreams - daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 10:01 AM

How about some zero tolerance for those sociopaths who think it's alright to eat peanuts on a Sunday? Where does a society that tolerates law-breaking like that end up? It's a slippery slope...

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Sam L
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 10:36 AM

Damn! I thought we were getting along okay, Leprechaun, just arguing. Really I did. I keep doing this with people. I like the sparring.
    One of the earliest sociological studies of criminals found that they were generally less than average intelligence. Later another study pointed out that the first study had used prison populations--exclusively the criminals who got caught. Leprechaun, do you think maybe people who use pot responsibly don't care to show it off to you? Think maybe you tend to see a lot of the worst-case? I've accepted little gifts of weed from old friends, though it seemed a waste, because I felt I ought to, for old-time's sake. And the little gifts sat around for 8 years in a drawer--a drug prosecutor close to me told me to shut up about this, didn't want to know. I can see why. Got rid of it at a party eventually.

   Rule-Boy, the laws are changing and will change further, without my lifting a finger. When you can have popular movies with pot dealer clowns, Jay and Silent Bob, or even anti-hero-heros, American Beauty, it says something about the general culture. Not that they are growing tolerant of pot--that's old news--but they are just inertly tolerant of still having pot illegal. They won't be forever.

   You have a point. If someone I know, a pretty messed-up person I'll grant you, bi-polar and unwilling to get help for it, dead-sober and no tobacco, but wasting time and money not just on pot, but on going to concerts of bands I thought were dead, buying t-shirts and crap, having lost all self-confidence--if that person went to jail on account of the pot, I'd be pissed. And yes, partly at myself for having done nothing to change the law. It's horrible to think of.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Peg
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 11:38 AM

leprechaun, please exaplin why the industrial use of hemp is yet "another scam."

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Peg
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 11:42 AM

Here's an interesting article:

http://www.emagazine.com/september-october_1999/0999feat2.html

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Peg
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 11:43 AM

Here's the clicky:

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Peg
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 11:46 AM

right, HERE's the clicky:

http://www.emagazine.com/september-october_1999/0999feat2.html

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: *daylia*
Date: 05 Mar 03 - 11:50 AM

"Eventaully Opium, MJ and Cocaine were seen as dangerous substances and laws were passed against them."

Ruleboy your lack of knowledge on this subject is really glaring! If the law-makers were truly concerned about protecting people from so-called "dangerous" substances, why are tobacco and alcohol and gasoline still legal, for just a few examples? Please, take the time to do some research - and use your own head to do some creative critical analysis of what you discover before you make claims like that!

Here's what Canadian sociologist/criminologist Peter Elgin has to say about the reasons for the development of Canadian narcotics legislation criminalizing the import, manufacture, sale, possession and use for other than medical purposes of opium and it's derivatives, and of cocaine and marihuana, back in the time-period 1908-1923:

"(1) the racial conflict between 'whites' and 'orientals',
   (2) the status conflict between the high-status medical profession   
       and its clients using narcotics for therapeutic purposes and   
       the low-status users, particularly Chinese, using opium for      
       pleasure, and
   (3) the prevailing cultural beliefs and values about drugs and
       their links to sexual promiscuity and 'race mixing' ... (God      
       forbid, interracial sex)."

"...Those legal norms created the public morality that was responsible for the moral transformation of a private indulgence into a public crime.... In time, through the efforts of zealous reformers and enforcers and the paucity of organized or influential opposition, the public came to share that drug ideology that motivated the initial anti-drug crusaders.

...The 'solution' to the marijuana problem is not the prevention of it's use but a changing of attitudes towards it. Such a change could also have other consequences. If the cultivation, distribution and sale of cannabis were legalized, then one would do away with a lot of deviant activity. One would have put an end to the need to smuggle the drug and also the illegalities involved in the use of the profits from the trade.

... Whether marijuana is harmful is a complicated question, and whether it is more so than other drugs [tobacco and alcohol] in widespread and legal use is debatable."

             From "A Sociology of Crime", 1992
                Dr. Peter Elgin and Dr. Stephen Hester

Peter Elgin was one of my professors at Wilfrid Laurier University, highly respected and certainly no 'pot-head'. Although he did make some waves being a fan of Noam Chomsky!

Anyway, it cost me much time and effort - and money - to study these things. I'm certainly not going to do any more of your research for you!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Sam L
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 11:51 AM

Well, I'll be accused again of knowing everything, but I think Ruleboy is expressing an attitude, not an opinion, and while it's fun to poke at it, I don't expect to change it. A reasonable opinion based on weighing alternatives might be changed by information, but an attitude does as it likes. I was very much looking forward to an argument based on the origin of the use of pot, with a stated presumption of cause and effect. Never mind goverment, culture, religion, fate, history, natural disaster, let's set out to blame pot with a xenophobic and racist spin. That anyone thinks they can make a reasonable argument out of an unreasoning premise makes me want to argue in fun that smoking pot must improve cognitive function and logic.

   And it shouldn't be necesary to point out to Leprechaun that comparing sensible use of one substance to excess with another makes no earthly sense. But... I don't think I'd want cops to go around deciding which laws they liked, and I've had jobs where I had to maintain an unreasoned attitude. Retail--having to maintain all that fake professional Niceness, with people you'd personally rather kick hard in the ass. Maybe that's why I seem to be prone to venting.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Mar 03 - 10:21 PM

My understanding is that it was basically that, once prohibition of alcohol in the USA was ended, the agency which had been built up on the basis of prohibition had to find something to deal with, or it would have been in danger of getting wound up, and marijuana fitted the bill - with the big advantage, at the time, that it was disempowered people like Blacks and Mexicans who tended to use it.

And the rest of the world just followed Big Brother Jonathan, which is often the easiest thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: GUEST,Ruleboy
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 01:49 PM

"Eventually Opium, MJ and Cocaine were seen as dangerous substances and laws were passed against them."

The only way I could be wrong about this statement is #1 one or more of them had laws passed to control the use of them or #2 there were laws against them all along. Possibility #3 is that no one or at least no one in the position to pass laws saw them as dangerous.

Now which part or parts of the statement is wrong?

Tobacco an alky is controlled by minimum age requirements. Someday I expect tobacco, nicotine to be exact, to be illegal. It is an addictive drug that is harmful. At least the people suing the tobacco companies claim it is and they are winning.

Alky is not dangerous if taken in moderation. A lot of common things taken in excess is dangerous. You can die from eating too much salt.

It is difficult to draw a line between what is necessary like salt and what is unnecessary like drugs. Has anybody's life ever been improved by using illegal drugs? If so they don't have nuch of a life. They need to fix their life instead of escaping from it by using drugs.


Ruleboy

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 02:04 PM

Isn't it a horrible thing to have an innocent plant so degraded and maligned? How distressing that a plant, made by nature, should be subjected to such obloquy by mere humans. Here's a plant that is so useful for food, medicine, fiber...why, there are hundreds of uses, and the native Americans weren't reluctant to use it. Of course I'm talking about, Typhacaeae Latifolia, more commonly known as the cattail.

Unfortunately ther's no part of that plant you can smoke to get high. That's why there isn't a multi-million dollar industry making cattail wallets for junior high kids to carry around. You won't find scratchy, coarse, ugly skirts and pants made from cattails being sold in head shops. Woody Harrelson won't be holding any rallys to promote the industrial use of cattails, and he won't be making ludicrous assertions that we can save all the old growth forests if we just start making paper out of cattails.

There may have been a time when hemp was a legitimate industrial material, but that time is long passed. There's no paper, cloth or ropw you can make hemp that can't be made better and cheaper with other materials. If the plant didn't get you high, Woody Harrelson and half a million hippies in scratchy clothes wouldn't give a shit about hemp.

Cattail

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 02:25 PM

Peg - Oxycontin, and many forms of codiene ARE controlled substances. You can't use them recreationally without breaking the law. That's why we have pharmacists.

As for going to prison for smoking pot, where the hell does that happen? Where I come from, people get a ticket for simple possession, recently raised to $250.00.

I avoid marijuana cases every chance I get, because heroin, cocaine and meth are much more fun for me. (Heroin's my favorite) But I helped with an arrest of two fellows with sixty pounds of BC bud last year. One of them got probation, and the other one spent a few months in jail because he had a criminal history.

Right now, the feds classify marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance, ostensibly on a par with heroin, and more dangerous, based on the schedule, than cocaine, a Schedule II substance. But the schedule doesn't equate when compared with sentencing guidelines. Federal prosecutors won't even look at a marijuana case unless it involves more than eighty pounds, or several hundred plants. Marijuana offenders aren't sentenced anywhere near as severely as heroin, meth and cocaine offenders. That's as it should be.

Some people think we should legalize all drugs. I think that's a very bad idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Peg
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 02:31 PM

leprechain:

Peg - Oxycontin, and many forms of codiene ARE controlled substances. You can't use them recreationally without breaking the law. That's why we have pharmacists.
--I know. You're missing my point. My point is, these substances are far easier (and legal) to obtain than marijuana and are far more dangerous and addictive. And they are a MUCH bigger problem as a street drug.


As for going to prison for smoking pot, where the hell does that happen? Where I come from, people get a ticket for simple possession, recently raised to $250.00.
--Not for smoking. For possession of small amounts. Texas.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Beccy
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 05:02 PM

I tried smoking some dried hay in high school. My advice? Don't try it. Ick...

I think marijuana ought to be decriminalized, but until it is, doesn't it make sense that everything connected with it (bongs, pipes, etc...) ought to be illegal, too?

I think decriminalization will come, but until then it's a controlled substance who's purchase supports the criminal community in a direct or indirect way. Who wants that grief and guilt? (I might point out that even if decriminalization comes, I will not be partaking...)

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: open mike
Date: 07 Mar 03 - 05:21 PM

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-990728.html
a story about the internet intrusion allowed
for the sake of ... national security??

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 08 Mar 03 - 03:41 PM

Oxycontin is available by prescription, but I bet I could get a pound of marijuana quicker than I could get quarter ounce of oxycontin, legally or illegally.

I'll bet if I arrest somebody for selling a quarter ounce of oxycontin, that person will get in more trouble than the person who sells a pound of marijuana. Even though, from the feds point of view, oxycontin is deemed useful, and therefore legal if obtained by prescription, its illegal sale would eventually get an offender in more trouble than the sale of marijuana. In that respect, the federal schedules are inconsistent, when compared with actual sanctions.

There is a federal law against manufacturing and marketing paraphernalia specifically designed for the illegal use of controlled substances. I wasn't even aware of it until my DEA buddies came up with Operation Pipe Dreams. There's also a state law in my area, but it has not been enforced. Until this happened, the paraphernalia merchants were getting away it by claiming, (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) that their products were only for the consumption of legal products.

That same nudgenudgewinkwink is currently used by the overwhelmingly vast majority of ostensibly "seriously ill" people who have obtained "medical marijuana" cards.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Sam L
Date: 08 Mar 03 - 04:23 PM

Well, I guess I'd have to say my life was enhanced a little by pot, at one point. The best my brother and I ever got along was when we used to get high together, talk about music endlessly. It's a small thing, but I wouldn't give it back. And I really do believe that after you get high for a while, you learn it, can do it mentally without the drug, you can access a mental frame of mind in which everything is a little bit funny. There are times at work, in difficult circumstances, when I throw out the idea that it's funny, on no ground whatsoever but class-A stoner silliness, and it catches on, we all have a better, less stressful day. Pot helped me squeak through a difficult adolescence, and when I found other things to do, it was the easiest thing in the world to quit. On the down-side, it takes up a lot of time and trouble, makes you tired, eventually, and costs way too much.

I don't think everything connected to it should be illegal, or any of it, for that matter, but the headshop stuff is more of the overblown commercial culture of pot that doesn't happen to suit my personality. Any respectable stoner should be able to make a bong out of any three given objects, anyway. As if pot didn't cost enough itself, you've got to buy a bunch of pointless paraphenalia. What a scam. I tend to agree with Leprechaun that hemp is sort of a scam, overvalued as a material because of second-hand-smoking-pot hipness--except that I think overpriced illegal pot is a scam also. But there are lots of basically senseless marketing scams that we can't really fix, except by not buying them.

   Is it necesary, Ruleboy? O' reason not the need, man, for in the basest thing a beggar is superfluous--or something like that from King Lear. It's one of the published virtues of the earth, or something like that. It's quite pleasant, soothing, entertaining, pretty harmless, and not addictive. Will we have to get rid of useless, un-productive sex, too? Bummer, dude. Hope I die before doctors figure out how to make me live so long.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: JennyO
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 12:14 AM

A couple of people have said that clothes made from hemp are "scratchy". I would definitely disagree with that. I have three hemp shirts, and they are like a heavy cotton, and very soft. They feel substantial, hang beautifully, and creases tend to fall out of them. I love them.

I also have a beautiful hand cream made from hemp.

As for smoking it, I'd just like to say that you don't hear about husbands bashing their wives in a fit of "stonedness" (is that a word?) Misuse of our legal drug of choice, alcohol, is a catalyst in many violent crimes and dangerous driving, but the big companies own that industry, so you don't see that made illegal.

I don't mind the odd drink (or the other stuff for that matter)in moderation, but I can't see any moral reason for one being legal, and the other not.

I might PM Paul (Clean Supper) about this thread. He wrote a good song on this issue.

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 12:37 AM

When they completely legalize it, I probably won't feel like it's the end of the world. The end of the world won't happen until they legalize heroin. In my unit we joke about how, when the anarchists take over the world, all drugs will be legal. People will be shooting up at the bus stop in front of the grade school and we'll be reduced to saying, "I'm watching you fellow! You're just lucky it isn't ten years ago!"

They'll still need cops though - to arrest people who eat meat, make money, or use internal combustion engines.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 12:48 AM

Well, Iz here to say that I went up to the neighbors tonight with my guitar, a slide and 3 beers in a bag.

Well, was it my idea to bring out the hard stuff? Heck no... They brought it out and, well, since real pipes are *outlawed*, we had to make a pipe out of a beer can... Ahhh, so we did. Glad we weren't busted by Johnny Ashcroft for havin' a pipe made out of a beer can! Whew! Like real terrorism here!

Ahhhh, like anyone ever think about why it is that any frat boy, GWB hisself, can go out drunk out of their gords drivin' on the highways killin' folks and if I smoke a little pot, Mr. Ashcroft wants to send my butt off for 99?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 01:01 AM

I apologize Bobert. Looking over this thread, it appears it was Bee Dubya Ell who first called our GUEST an Asshole. It appears you've been falsely accused.

When Ashcroft sends you to prison for 99 years, I will recommend leniency in the interest of justice. But you can get a substantial reduction in the remaining 66 years if you'll give up your supplier.

Ha ha, just kidding! I already know who they are. I just access the secret internet server, and with a quick search I get the name of every person in the United States who bought a beer can in the last six months.

I'm gonna have to start mass producing Custody Reports!

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 08:39 AM

Has anyone ever invented a pipe that you couldn't use for smoking tobacco? Or that you couldn't use for smoking pot? Or matches that you could only use for one or the other? Or cigarette papers?

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: *daylia*
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:01 AM

Jenny, maybe you folk down under know how to make hemp clothes! Honestly, the stuff sold here in Barrie Ont looks like it's made out of bailing twine and feels about as pleasant. Most of it looks like a Grade 8 HomeEc class did the cutting and sewing. Is your hemp clothes 100% hemp, or is it combined with cotton or some other fiber for a softer feel and better fit?

People's tastes vary in what smells good too. A few people I know like patchouli oil, but I can't get away from it fast enough. The Hemp stuff smells similiar - to me, anyway.

I'd like to see it legalized, the crime-gangs put out of business. I remember a few teens and young adults murdered here over the last couple decades because they owed drug money to the wrong person. What a waste.

And I'd like to see the plant used for purposes other than just getting high. Like making paper. I've seen the vast tracks clear-cut forests a few times driving across this great country of mine - especially in BC and northern Ontario. The devastation angers me and breaks my heart. Even if paper manufacturers used 50% hemp, 50% wood it would help, imo.

There were a lot of lay-offs in logging industry on Vancouver Island last winter, due to the squabble over soft-wood taxes with the US.
I was almost relieved, though.   Vancouver Island is one of the few places left in North America where Bald Eagles nest. But between the loggers felling the ancient trees (nests and all!) and the pollution from the fishing industry, they are becoming an endangered species there as well. People just don't seem to care at all.

Most days, I like the eagles better!   ;)

Sorry bout the 'drift there - daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Sam L
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 09:28 AM

I'm gonna start mass producing black market bongs and pipes, double the price every few years, and claim they are much better than they used to be. (Who remembers anyway.) Maybe I can make them out of industrial hemp and get free celebrity advertising.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 01:54 PM

I'm rather surprised the Netherlands hasn't turned up so far in Bush's Axis of Evil list.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 01:58 PM

Fred - I have some interesting pipe design ideas I stole from the folks we arrested. I think they were gonna patent them, but then they got high.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 06:11 PM

Lepper:

No problem. I thought we had all-ready gotten that one staight. But just 'cause we're tight again don't mean Iz gonna tell you were I grow my "evil weed". No sir...

Actually, I've still got an ounce left from last year and as little as I smoke, I may not plant anything. Yeah, I know. "What kind of old hippie are you anyway, Bobert?"

Well, Lepper, everything in moderation.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 06:48 PM

Nice buds, no seeds? Keep it too long it gets stale. Have you considered a vacuum sealer?

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 08:56 PM

Thanks, Lep. Heck of an idea. I never thought about that. Then what? I like to bury my extra stash in a zip lock baggie in a mason jar out in the woods. I bury it about a foot deep. Ya' reckon them dog can sniff it?

Ahhh, as fir seeds, nah? I don't use 'em. I got friends who clone and they jus gimmie two 'er three palnts and I take 'em back in the holler where I got some nice holes and refresh 'em with some cow manure and a little bat dung, mulch em' good and let nature take care of the rest of it. Then 'round the 1st of October I go on back there and see what's up. Usually some nice sticky buds. Heck, one year I went back there and all three palnts had growed about 12 feet tall. Man, oh man. I harvested one of 'em, pulled the other two and just left 'em fir the deer. Heck, even danged deer deserve to catch a buzz now and then. Right?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 09 Mar 03 - 11:58 PM

Nice and nach'ral, no hydroponics or grow lights for you!

In fact, indulging in the manner you describe, if you were to get caught, it would offend me to see you go to prison. I don't know if simple possession is decriminalized in West Virginia like it is in Oregon, but chances are that cultivation penalties are more draconian. So ten cuidado mi amigo.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Sam L
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:33 PM

Funny you mention it, Leprechaun, because I was thinking when I posted that making bongs and stuff illegal was kinda like giving a patent to the illegal business. Except when, unlike patents, enforcement favors the little guy.

The PTO used to adhere to uncoded standards of decorum, but now you can do nearly anything. I think you could probably only go for a design patent, in most cases. You couldn't argue a new use for smoking different substances, because they'd come back saying it's obvious you could smoke different stuff. The only utility-worthy idea I can think of, off-hand, would be a lowfire pipe or bong, based on the thermodynamic that a burning substance burns up some of it's effective ingredients, the lowest heat is more effective. I bet there are a few. I wonder how it plays out now in regard to patent law, given the obvious multi-purposes, as McGrath observed. But I'm too lazy to check into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 02:46 PM

I believe that there is evidence that the higher the heat of the burning, the worse the carcinogen production, and that might be one reason why cigarette smoking is especially dangerous (only one reason - inhaling the smoke is a major factor here as well).

So Fred Miller's idea might actually make a lot of sense - water pupes of course lower the temperature of the smoke itself, but that's a different mater. People often assume when they see water pipes that they are just used for pot, but they have traditionally been used for tobacco as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 07:16 PM

Not to worry, Lepster... This is Wes Ginny. We ain't got no cops here. No crime either. Figgure that one out... Like which came first the crook or the cop?

Anyway, we ain't got 'em in this holler. Well, okay, there was one time when Ricky Penwell, with one leg in cast and supposedlu arrested in the back of a state police car riding close by, somehow overpowered the sate boy, stole his car and, to make things worser, the officer's dog and left the officer on the side of the road. Then Ricky headed back in this holler.

Boy, we had cops that day. No one got out of the holler without having their trunks checked fir a guy with a cast on one leg and a police dog. But they didn't catch him. Nope, that old boy drove the old logging road up on the ridge past the Peace Meditation Center and thru three or four streams and came out down around Mt.Weather, where Ollie North lives.

But those were the last cops 'round here.

Ahhhh, you are probably wonderin' why we ain't got no crime? Well, Dreaded Guest knows.

We all got guns! No one messes with no one! Hmmmmmm?

Bobert

p.s., Lepper. Gets me all choked up to think you'd be pissed if I got busted! Sniff, sniff.... sniff.......

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: leprechaun
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:22 PM

I wouldn't be pissed if you were busted. I'd be pissed if they put you in prison for possession of pot. There's a difference.

And no wonder you ain't got no cops. I saw a West Virginia cop on the cover of Parade Magazine's "income" issue. The poor fellow only makes 28 G a year. He'd have to sell bongs to make ends meet.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: *daylia*
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:33 PM

Hey leprechaun - so that's what the raids are all about!!!

;-) daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:35 PM

LOL, Lep. But, hey, 28 G's, ya say? Hmmmmmm? Sound like aton of money to me. Maybe I'll apply. You got any ideas on passin' the pee test? 28 G's? Wow. I would have figgured about $7 an hour! Man, like's that some real dough.

BTW, now Iz real hurt!.... Fir a minute there I thought you would be pissed if I got busted! But no! You would love to see me get busted. Just don't want me to do no hard time. Well, danged, Lepster, that's real white of ya!

Danged!

Bobert

Awww, jus funnin'. Hope they bust you for being a knucklehead.. but hope you don't do no hard time... See how it feels?

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: *daylia*
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:40 PM

PS Sure wish they'd give you the mandate to bust the corporate 'criminals' responsible for poisoning the air and sickening the waters and destroying the forests instead ... but that's probably only in my wildest (heaven forbid not marijuana-inspired!) dreams ...

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Mar 03 - 09:57 PM

Yo Lepper:

What daylia said!

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: JennyO
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 06:34 AM

Hey Bobert, what's become of Dreaded Guest? Things have quietened down around here!

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: JennyO
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 06:51 AM

How about that! Clicked on the next thread and there was DG again.

Subject: RE: BS: Feds Bust Bong Sellers
From: Sam L
Date: 11 Mar 03 - 09:26 AM

28g? Dang. I could do the pee test, but can't hold a position of resposibility where I have to understand radio squawk. Ca#$r $56*(2, rqepo*&d to &84*^#@#!^&! What? Do What? For 28G? Forget it. I'd rather teach.

   Somebody tells me there's a lawsuit about a state-hired medicinal weed grower who was then busted by the feds, but I haven't found any real news about it.