Pubdate: Sun, 11 May 2003
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Section: Page B5
Copyright: 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Jenn Abelson

POLICE TAKE AIM AT GLASS PIPES

Drug Accessories Moving Off Shelves

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.

"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."

The police aren't buying that explanation, though, and for now, nobody will 
be buying bongs at Sugar Daddy's.

"They are selling pipes and other products used for smoking marijuana and 
other drugs, and it's in violation of general laws," said Boston Detective 
Sergeant Daniel Linskey, who is leading an effort to stop stores he calls 
"head shops" from selling items that police believe are used with illicit 
substances.

"From my 17 years in drug enforcement, what the owners were selling is drug 
paraphernalia," Linskey said of the three stores police have visited so 
far, "and I think they're being disingenuous if they're [saying] otherwise."

In the past few weeks, Boston police have told the owners of Sugar Daddy's 
and two other businesses to clear their shelves of pipes that could be used 
to smoke marijuana and other illegal drugs - or risk arrest and the seizure 
of property. Linskey said he could have arrested the owners on the spot, 
"but I didn't want to be unreasonable."

Although Linskey said the crackdown began after he happened upon one of the 
stores while checking security in the city during the war in Iraq, the 
enforcement comes on the heels of national efforts to curtail the drug 
paraphernalia industry. Linskey would not say whether the local initiative 
would spread beyond Sugar Daddy's, Hempest on Newbury Street, and Buried 
Treasures on Haviland Street, all of which carried a large inventory of 
such products.

State law prohibits the sale of paraphernalia "under circumstances where 
one reasonably should know that it will be used to ... store, contain, 
conceal, inject, ingest, inhale, or otherwise introduce into the human body 
a controlled substance."

But owners and employees at the three businesses said the products are 
intended for legal purposes only.

"This law goes too far," said Franklin, who has cut staff and reduced his 
hours ever since Sugar Daddy's was the first store ordered to remove the 
alleged drug paraphernalia. "I can't be held responsible for people using 
these for other things that's not to my knowledge."

Some items at the store cost up to $4,500, he said, and "are so beautiful 
they belong in the Museum of Fine Arts."

Franklin said he's "wicked strict" in making sure customers aren't buying 
his products for illegal purposes, and added that his store is considering 
challenging the police order in court.

"I am angry and so are my customers," said Renwick Samms, manager of Buried 
Treasures, where employees have put up additional signs reminding customers 
about the intended use of the products being sold.

Still, visits by customers to the small back room have decreased since 
police issued the order. Behind the hanging beads, and inside the glass 
case, the black velvet shelves are now lined with glass candies, cloth 
wallets, and shiny lighters, instead of the pipes that drew customers such 
as Mike Pham of Worcester.

"This is so bad. It must be the Bush administration," said Pham, who threw 
up his hands in dismay after finding that the pipes had been removed. A 
20-something wearing a blue, button-down shirt and yellow tie, Pham said he 
would have to travel to the suburbs now to shop. He sighed and walked out 
empty-handed.

At Hempest, where glass pipes that sell for between $10 and $1,000 make up 
about 10 percent of the business, the owners have gathered hundreds of 
signatures for a petition calling for glass pipes to be exempted from the 
state ban on drug paraphernalia. Despite the police order, the store still 
had some glass pipes on display, although fewer than before the officers 
visited.

"This is just silly. Pipes have existed for thousands of years," said owner 
Jon Napoli.

All the businesses have been operating for at least seven years, and owners 
said this is the first time their products have been challenged by the police.

Although Linskey said his efforts to curb head shop activity sprang from an 
antiterrorism patrol of Kenmore Square, where he "happened to discover 
Sugar Daddy's, who then told me about the Hempest," the local crackdown 
follows national initiatives. In late February, federal authorities charged 
55 people in 10 states with trafficking illegal drug paraphernalia as part 
of Operation Pipe Dreams. Among those arrested were 17 owners and employees 
of head shops in Idaho and Eastern Oregon. US Attorney General John 
Ashcroft also has announced four indictments against national distributors 
of drug paraphernalia in Michigan, California, and Texas as part of another 
investigation, Operation Head Hunter.

"National, state, and local law enforcement agencies across the country 
have determined that drug paraphernalia is something that needs to be 
addressed if we're going to make the drug problem smaller," said Scott 
Burns, a deputy director at the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Steven Epstein, a founder and treasurer of the Massachusetts Cannabis 
Reform Coalition, sharply criticized what he viewed as an attack by Boston 
police on legal businesses. He also rejected the police characterization of 
the stores as head shops, and said at least two are licensed by the state 
to sell tobacco products.

Epstein, a lawyer who is representing Sugar Daddy's, said the laws that 
define drug paraphernalia are convoluted, and he's concerned that police 
"can threaten tobacconists with the loss of valuable inventory simply 
because the police believe the owner knew, or should have known, one of the 
customers was going to use it to smoke pot or crack."

Linskey disagreed, saying the laws are very clear.

Not all customers may grasp the nuances of drug paraphernalia laws, however.

Bryan Such, a longtime customer of Buried Treasures and a recent part-time 
worker at the store, said some young adults "come in and use drug 
references which we don't approve here at all. It's almost like they think 
it's a safety zone, and laws don't apply to us. But they do."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth