Ashcroft blames Internet for paraphernalia

Sounds like a practice run, Grey...

This sounds like an effective way of testing the procedures that might be used for other types of raids. It's safer to go after people that sell pipes to dope smokers than to jump right in on other types of citizen targets. As it stands, I'm dismayed that the Feds' limited resources were used for a series of raids that will not enhance our country's security at all. Did violent criminals and terrorists all disappear yesterday? Did I just not get the memo? If it's a practice run, I call "Foul." We don't provide those folks with all of their expensive tools so they can practice on the citizenry.

{Tinfoil hat ON} If I wanted to build an office empire (build my budget, hire more people, gain more authority by safely increasing the number of reported arrests and convictions for an activity that's hard to garner support for: dope smoking), then this would be the sort of thing that would be tempting. {Tinfoil hat OFF}

And I do not ever use illegal drugs. I just don't want to. Sure, I've got the Master's degree, I'm a Vol. FF, blah, blah, blah ... but I do not have to justify myself in order to argue that these raids look like a bad idea.

2dogs, please try to make your point without ad hominem attacks and insults.

heres an archive of Tommy's site:
http://www.thememoryhole.org/drugs/pipe-sites/chong-glass.htm

yeah, I AM a little like Reverend Jim on Taxi.

Ok, so we know you are a likable, funny guy. That's good.

2dogs, please try to make your point without ad hominem attacks and insults.

SYLLABICATION: ad hom·i·nem
PRONUNCIATION: hm-nm, -nm
ADJECTIVE: Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason

OK, I swear never to insult commie, punk liberals.

It seems perfectly logical and reasonable to expect someone to respect my rights if I respect theirs. It may be an over generalization, but unless the world has changed beyond recognition in the last 30 years I'm willing to bet that most drug users consider themselves liberal, or libertarian (more likely the former) and I welcome the libertarians since they understand the concept of rights, responsibilty and personal liberty.

Uh, Bob, one other point.

When I talk about "commie, punk liberals" I am talking about them as a subset of "liberals". Now granted they are probably a 99.9999999999% subset, but ,well, what can I say.

As for the vast number (let's see........there's Malone Laveigh...........and, um, er, the Clintons...............uh no, Charlie Rangle...................uh, no....................Charlie Schumer...........................gee, not him either. Maybe you can name a few) of liberals (in the classical sense, not the modern) who do support my rights, well I applaud them.

You see, that big subset wants to deny me the right and means to defend my life, and the lives of family, friends and others. That to me is the equivalent of wishing (and possibly making) me and mine dead. So to that subset I say kiss my happy @$$. They are my enemies, and as such are on a par with Nazis, Stalinists, Pol Pot, Yasar Arafat, Osama and every other demented escaped denizen from hell who would just as soon deprive others of life.

Hope that isn't to ad hominem.

Attornies General, DAs, etc. have a great deal of latitude in choosing what they will or won't prosecute.

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Prosecute, or enforce? Those are separate issues.

More Great Victories in the war on drugs.

Classs!

(note: this does NOT include cocaine, acid, speed--chemically produced derivatives that can kill if abused)

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Ah, shouldn't you also exclude alcohol and virtually every medicine ever produced? They're chemically produced and potentially lethal...

And remember that one guy a year or so ago who died from extreme over-use of aerosol deodorant? Perhaps that should be banned.

How about fugu? It's a Japanese delicacy made from poisonous blowfish, and kills a couple people every year.

These arbitrary "common sense" drug laws that people support are no better than the "common sense" gun laws that we know are so bogus. If someone wants to go shoot up with heroin, so what? People have the right to hurt themselves if they want to.

FWIW, I don't touch narcotics myself, and I fully support your absolute RKBA.

As for the vast number (let's see........there's Malone Laveigh...........and, um, er,

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You know, I used to feel sorry that Jody, Shatoga, TexasVet and crew never visited THR. Now I don't.

Anybody here fish. Do you have any hemostats for removing fish hooks? You have paraphenalia. How is this any different from firearms? How does Tommy Chong control what happens to his product after delivery? Think people. This same principle can be applied to firearms and don't give me any sass about the 2nd Ammendment.

Ya know, I'm growing more and more of an "attitude" with gummit meddlin.

I think I'll just move to the hills and make moonshine whiskey ( and I don't even drink)I'm sure there's a market and the gummit will be too busy surfin' the 'net. With the puny engines and front wheel drive vehicles the gummit has...old backroads , big blocks, beefy suspensions might be fun!

Sell for cash thus no taxes...really get the 'revenuer's' stirred up. Yep "alternative fuels" might be the way to go. Maybe expand into guns and tobacco. Work should be fun they say.

Easy low risk target. Any decent "HRT" or SWAT squad ought to be able to take out a head shop with hardly any fatalities. Train up all your newbies for assaulting the more mainstream citizens. Keep the level of fear and insecurity at higher levels for better control. The only real cost is loss of support from the governed. Who needs 'em?

Chong -- a man whose name is virtually synonymous with recreational marijuana use -- was not among those indicted, and he was not arrested during Monday's raids.

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They did arrest Tommy Chong and he plead guilty back in May. Yesterday (9/11), he was fined $100,000 and sentenced to 9 months in jail.

MicroBalrog

I'm not sure what your post was getting at.............................I wasn't criticizing Malone, I was putting him in the category of rare "liberals" who do support gun rights (which maybe means he isn't one?). And as such I have no problem with him.

Just in case you misread.

Ashcroft Cracks Down On Dirty Bongs, Raids Chong



Posted on 02/28/2003 5:30 PM PST


LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - On Monday, federal authorities charged 55 people with trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia. Shooting fish in a barrel, one of those investigated was actor, director, comedian and bong designer Tommy Chong.

Chong's company, Chong Glass, was raided, as was the actor's home. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the search of the "Up In Smoke" star's home turned up a small amount of marijuana.

The sweep, which the Drug Enforcement Agency coyly dubbed "Operation Headhunter" (targeting head shops in Iowa) and "Operation Pipe Dreams" (which snared suspects in Pennsylvania and California), were aimed at blunting the force of the chronic problem of internet-based sales of drug paraphernalia. Attorney General John Ashcroft described it as an "illegal billion dollar industry."

Online head shops (and their brick and mortar relatives) offer hookahs, hand pipes and water bongs, long hiding behind the assertion that they're not responsible for whether buyers use their products for smoking traditional tobacco or for illicit substances.

Chong was shocked by the raids. His publicist, Brandie Knight told the SFC, "It's awful. They're talking about war and everything else, and I can't believe they can't spend their time better."

In 2002, Tommy Chong showed many of his company's nicest pieces at an art show in Los Angeles in 2002. The Los Angeles Times described the show, at Ghettogloss, as "suspiciously rehearsed," but noted the installation's displays of colorful pipes, wooden sculptures, and graffiti art. While the theme of the even clearly encompassed marijuana culture, Ghettogloss owner Fiora observed at the time, "This is a legitimate art opening."

On the Chong Glass web site, every page is adorned with the warning "ALL PRODUCTS FOUND ON WWW.CHONGGLASS.COM ARE FOR LEGAL BLEND AND TOBACCO USE ONLY." A cybertour of the tubes, handpipes, hammers, sidecars and sherlocks available for purchase confirms the artistic aspirations.

The high prices also suggest that garden variety stoners may not be Chong's target clientele. The "Big Bamboo w/Percolator" costs $280, but comes with the promise that it's "what Tommy Chong's son uses."

The 64-year old Chong is best known for his partnership with Cheech Marin, during which the pair made seminal films including "Up In Smoke" and "Still Smokin.'" Chong also appeared in a more recent head classic, "Half-Baked." Most recently, the actor played generally blitzed photomatte owner Leo on FOX's "That '70s Show." It's possible the feds may have been tipped off to Chong by the titles of his films and his on-and-off-screen persona of blissful oblivion.

As neither Chong nor Chong Glass were specifically named on any of Operation Headhunter or Operation Pipe Dreams' indictments, it's unclear what kind of repercussions the actor will face.

Ya Think?

It's possible the feds may have been tipped off to Chong by the titles of his films and his on-and-off-screen persona of blissful oblivion.

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{swivels head so that the spray of decaf misses the monitor and keyboard}
That - is - SOOOOOO - Funny!

When I was in junior high, I had a copy of the Big Bambu album

{edited to add - by Cheech and Chong: Cheech Marin, who recently played a detective in a TV series IIRC, and Tommy Chong from the story above}
{wisecrack on the nature of a "record album" deleted b/c it was dumb}.

Inside the album cover was a doubled sheet of paper the consistency of the paper used to roll Bull Durham or Drum tobacco. Yep, a free gimmick - a giGANtic rolling paper. Paraphernalia. Any guesses about the topic of one of the comedy routines on the record? Yep. And nobody ever got prosecuted, AFAIK.

There are more important uses for Federal resources.

Ashcroft reminds me more of Stacy Keach everyday.

First rule of war on terror,
Go after the potheads, confiscate their stuff, smoke and wear tin foil hats.

Shake the 8 ball and Osama and Sadam will appear and reveal their locations.

Pot will also cure the nausea created by throwing the constitution out the window.

I've never done pot or any other recreational drug in my life. Don't drink, don't smoke. Hardest "drug" I've done was Vicodin prescribed for a toothache...finished half the bottle over the course of a week or so, normal dosages, put the rest away for a rainy day.

BUT.

I have had JUST about enough of this crap.

Swear to God, if it's down to Bush vs. Dean and Dean promises not to put a FREAKIN' PSYCHO in as AG, and names somebody reasonably sane for the job before election day, I'm gonna vote against the shrubya and I'm gonna grin while I do it.

There's a limit.

Grrrrr...

Chong's sole "crime" was not keeping his acting career alive, so he had to settle for this to keep the bills paid.

I'm serious. I've freakin' HAD IT.

What a screwy application of law! Feddies raid shops selling inert glassware. Local D.A. rejects cultivation cases of fewer than 25 plants - especially when no property seizure is possible and the "name three and go free" doctrine is followed. Ed Rosenthal is busted while cultivating medicinal weed under local LE consent. Alcohol is still named as the #1 drug of abuse and societal damage and The Lancet gets 15" of newspaper column bemoaning the "brown plague" of tobacco smoking and the 4.84 million who died worldwide in 2000 from it. Chong's arrest got 4" of column on the same page (and nobody seems to have died worldwide from dope smoking in 2000 or any other year). I am left just a little confused by all this. Time to go to the range.

I feel so much safer now.

i notice above that selling hookas online is an illegal BILLION dollar business

one might think a billion dollar business would have long ago greased the legal skids via the campaign contribution

i kinda doubt the entire firearm ecosphere is a billion dollars a year

Jim March:

Hardest "drug" I've done was Vicodin prescribed for a toothache...finished half the bottle over the course of a week or so, normal dosages, put the rest away for a rainy day.

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Just so you know, you MAY be violating a WOsD statute. Most of the prescription statutes that I am familuar with are state/local, but most frown upon keping a prescription for a "controlled substance" longer than the normal dosage would allow.

This is where we have come to folks. If any of you want to prepare for what the end days of gun ownership may look like, just study the war on marijuana. Originally the government required you to have a tax stamp which you could only get if you carried you pot to a post office or other source. Course to do that you were already in possesion of unstamped marijuana and would be arrested. It was tax code. After thirty some years of that the gov't finally lost in court. For two years (give or take) marijuana was legal before the gov't just out-and-out banned it.

Prohibition took a constitutional amenment. The WOsD and gun-grabbing clearly won't.

GinSlinger

Properly used federal resources gives me warm, fuzzy feelings. More glass making terrorists off the street! Yay! Now if only they could do something about all those damn guns...

Two Things

1. I don't know how good those glass pipes are for smoking dope, but as art objects they're, well, UGLY!

2. Dave's not here.














(Oh, and I'm not Dave!)

but as art objects they're, well, UGLY!

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They are a lot better looking than anything currently considered "modern art". Fortunately, I prefer look at guns over looking at bongs.