Pubdate: Wed, 05 Mar 2003
Source: Willamette Week (OR)
Copyright: 2003 Willamette Week
Contact:  http://www.wweek.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/499
Author: TAYLOR CLARK

Mark Herer Says According To His Reading Of The Law, He Can Still Sell 
Water Pipes From His Southeast Portland Head Shop.

ASHCROFT HITS THE BONGS

High-ranking government officials are such buzz killers sometimes. Last 
Monday, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a massive nationwide 
sting on Internet distributors of drug paraphernalia, including pipes and 
glass bongs. "Operation Pipe Dreams" yielded millions of dollars worth of 
seized goods and 55 busts--including two in Eugene.

Pot smokers have been buying their gear legally at head shops for decades, 
under the subterfuge that the 10-foot water pipe they're lugging to their 
VW van is for use with tobacco only.

"The line between legal and illegal has always been really fuzzy with this 
stuff," concedes Brin Levinson, a Portland glass blower who, until Monday, 
made bong stems for a local paraphernalia distributor. "The whole shop 
where I worked is basically out of business right now."

Mark Herer, co-owner of The Third Eye Shoppe, insists he isn't doing 
anything illegal by selling bongs at his head shop. "It's not my job to 
figure out what people are putting in their apparatus," Herer argues. 
"Let's shut down Radio Shack for selling alligator clips."

But Thomas O'Brien of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Seattle 
office sees a big difference between something with a legitimate legal use 
and something made exclusively for smoking weed.

"If people have arts and crafts, that's OK," says O'Brien. "But anyone 
selling things used for inhaling controlled substances, that's illegal."

He says his office is working with local police

agencies and warned that feds won't overlook places like Third Eye much longer.

But until Ashcroft knocks on his Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard door, Herer 
plans on conducting business as usual. "We're still walking the walk and 
talking the talk according to the rules they set up," says Herer. "We're 
not changing the way we do business."
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart