Pubdate: Mon, 10 Jan 2005
Source: Times-Picayune, The (LA)
Copyright: 2005 The Times-Picayune
Contact:  http://www.nola.com/t-p/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/848
Author: By Gwen Filosa, Staff writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

'PIPE' BUST IS A THORNY CASE

Rose Trinkets Really Drug Vessels, Police Say

Drug addicts pull some colorful stunts when it comes to getting their
fixes.

Many a pot smoker has fashioned a pipe from a crushed soda can or an
empty toilet paper roll. Desperate alcoholics have drunk nail polish
remover. Credit cards make handy tools to cut ready-to-snort lines of
cocaine or heroin. A light bulb can be hollowed out for smoking
crystal meth.

The crack cocaine user is known for fashioning a thin "pipe" from
household items or even a scrap of aluminum foil.

Or the user could simply walk down to corner stores, which for years
have sold a gaudy knickknack capable of serving as a token of
affection -- or a 4-inch glass crack pipe. The "Lover's Rose," made in
China, consists of a cheap glass tube with a fake rose inside.

One Central City store recently went a step further, allegedly selling
prepackaged crack pipes kits, according to New Orleans police. For a
dollar, customers received a plastic sandwich bag filled with the
small glass "Lover's Rose" coupled with a wad of steel wool, police
said.

The clear Pyrex glass tubes make ideal crack pipes. Crack addicts use
the steel-wool material as a filter.

Father, daughter arrested

A woman who sold one of the packaged kits to an undercover police
officer is facing a charge of illegally having drug paraphernalia.
Thoa T. Ngyuen, 29, was booked Nov. 10 and released on her own
recognizance not long after arriving at Central Lockup.

Nguyen identified herself to police as the manager of B&L Seafood, a
store at Clio and South Rampart streets, about a block from the 6th
District police station. She was arrested with her father, Banh
Nguyen, 50, the store's owner.

Both Nguyens are due in Magistrate Court this month to enter a plea to
the charge. A message left at the store for the pair was not returned.

The "Lover's Rose" glass tubes have frustrated police departments
nationwide, from Seattle to Nashville to Detroit, where the federal
government recently took over the pipe battle. The Drug Enforcement
Administration seized more than 334,000 of the encased roses destined
for retail outlets in Detroit. The estimated retail value was $1.3
million.

"The rose is sold in the crack pipe so that retailers can attempt to
deny responsibility that they violated paraphernalia laws," according
to a DEA statement. "By placing these items in the view of children,
it gives them the perception that drug use is acceptable and tolerated."

Louisiana law has a long list of what it considers paraphernalia,
including "bongs," syringes, balloons and "carburetor pipes." The
types of pipes covered by the law include metal, wooden, acrylic,
glass, stone, plastic or ceramic.

The Nguyens were booked with one of the state's "acts prohibited,"
which upon conviction carries up to six months in jail or a fine of up
to $500. Federal law punishes those convicted of selling drug
paraphernalia, as opposed to possessing it, with up to three years in
prison.

But drug paraphernalia cases are tough to prove. Defense attorneys and
those in the drug-law reform effort consider them nuisances that
aren't worth the courts' time.

And since the advent of Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie
Jordan's administration, prosecutors have stopped bringing the
so-called "crack pipe cases." Jordan's predecessor, former District
Attorney Harry Connick, used to charge people with drug possession
when they had been caught with pipes that held mere cocaine residue.

'Difficult to prosecute'

But this case is different. No residue was found on any of the glass
tubes, according to the police report. Instead, a "concerned citizen"
tipped off the 6th District that the modest store was hawking the
tubes over the counter.

A plainclothes officer said he entered the store Nov. 10, placed a
dollar on the counter and requested "one pipe." Nguyen filled the
order, police said, handing over a baggie filled with the glass tube
and steel wool.

Nguyen appeared confused as to why an officer, this time in uniform,
entered her store after the sale and produced a search warrant, police
said. Officers said they later found more than 4,000 of the slender
glass tubes along with boxes of steel wool at the store.

The store is in the heart of Central City, a neighborhood besieged by
the crack cocaine subculture in New Orleans, police say. "It's a
day-to-day challenge to reduce the use of narcotics and the
distribution of drugs in that area," police spokesman Capt. Marlon
Defillo said. "It's disheartening to know that you have a business
that is profiting off of the residents, to sell what is believed to be
paraphernalia."

The "Lover's Rose" tubes aren't confined to just the city. They can be
found on the counters of cigarette-and-liquor stores in Harahan,
Metairie and Chalmette.

Across the South and in the rest of the country, police have targeted
convenience stores that appear to be selling ready-made crack pipes.
Police typically accuse some of the shopkeepers of selling cheap glass
pipes in the form of "stems" for plastic roses while knowing the tubes
double as crack pipes.

In the B&L case, the small glass tubes contained a little fake rose.
But each tube also was coupled with a snippet of steel-wool material,
which police say is a ridiculously obvious sign of illegal intention.

Defense attorney Gary Wainwright, who has handled drug possession
cases in Orleans Parish for more than a decade, said the inclusion of
metal mesh with the rose tubes makes the case unusual in Orleans Parish.

Typically, prosecutors accusing people of having drug paraphernalia
have evidence of residue of an illegal drug on the object in question,
Wainwright said.

"It's a case close to the borderline, but it would still be difficult
to prosecute," he said. "You have to prove that the person selling it
has a specific intent for it to be used for the ingestion of drugs."
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MAP posted-by: Derek