Pubdate: Sun, 02 Mar 2003
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2003 The Register-Guard
Contact:  http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Author: Neal Conner, Eugene

PARAPHERNALIA CASE UNTENABLE

Back when I was in junior high, the favored pipe was a hollowed-out apple, 
which some kids claimed gave the pot smoke a fruity taste. Also, it was 
good to eat afterward (because, inevitably, you got hungry).

Does that mean the Drug Enforcement Administration should expand its new 
interpretation of the law (Register-Guard, Feb. 25) to crack down on apple 
growers and sellers? Virtually anything can be used to smoke with, and 
there's no way to draw a clear line between paraphernalia that is 
improvised and intentional, any more than you could claim that a glass bong 
can't be used for something besides smoking - holding flowers, for instance.

The prosecutors must know their case is untenable and won't result in a 
successful prosecution - it's more a message they're delivering. But in the 
meantime, they've put a hundred people out of work in a town whose economy 
is hardly robust. Creating jobs, as I recall, was a major plank in the 
current administration's platform. I sell promotional signs to a number of 
local businesses; I saw first-hand how the owners of Jerome Baker Design 
ran a tight ship. They were a regular manufacturer with payroll and 
insurance, shipping, receiving - the real thing. For an enforcement branch 
of the government to arrogantly revise legal interpretation and announce 
one day that what was previously acceptable is no longer, is as absurd as 
declaring war on some country that isn't doing what we think it should.

Neal Conner

Eugene
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart