Pubdate: Wed, 09 Apr 2003
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2003 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

POT BONGS LEGAL

In another sign of the state-federal split over drugs, a state appellate 
court ruled Tuesday that possession of marijuana pipes is legal in 
California, just six weeks after bong-sellers around the nation were the 
targets of federal raids.

The Court of Appeal panel in Riverside County said a 1975 California law 
"deliberately decriminalized the possession of a device for smoking 
marijuana. " The same law changed marijuana possession from a possible 
felony to an infraction punishable by a $100 fine.

But federal law, which overrides state laws, continues to classify 
marijuana among the most dangerous narcotics, in the same category as 
heroin. Federal prosecutors have stepped up raids on medical marijuana 
suppliers in California and won convictions, though the state legalized 
medical marijuana in 1996.

On Feb. 24, federal agents raided more than 100 homes and businesses 
throughout the nation that sell bongs and pipes favored by pot smokers. 
Fifty people, including six in Northern California, were charged with 
trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia.

Californians in that case won't be helped by Tuesday's ruling, which 
involved only a state-law charge of possessing drug paraphernalia.

The defendant, a Riverside County youth, was sentenced to five to 10 days 
in juvenile hall after probation officers searched his bedroom in November 
2001 and found two bongs, one made of glass and the other fashioned from a 
shampoo bottle. The court said the youth admitted using them to smoke 
marijuana.

Prosecutors argued that the devices were illegal under state laws that bar 
possession of bongs for sale and require stores that display them to 
exclude minors. But the three-judge appellate panel, overruling a Superior 
Court judge, said no state law bans the mere possession of a bong.
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