Pubdate: Wed, 09 Apr 2003
Source: North Texas Daily (TX Edu)
Copyright: 2003 North Texas Daily
Contact:  http://www.ntdaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2842
Author: Genrty Braswell
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

NO BONGS FOR SALE

Federal Crackdown Closes Head Shop Chain In Metroplex

Operations Pipe Dreams and Headhunter extinguished three Dallas area head 
shops in late February.

These two nationwide Drug Enforcement Administration sting operations 
resulted in mandatory closure of all three Metroplex locations of Puffer's 
Paradise, which operated one site in Lewisville.

According to Rob Evans, the administration's public information officer, 50 
people were arrested on charges of trafficking of drug paraphernalia 
nationwide, including one in Dallas.

"We made our arrests; now it's up to the courts," Evans said, and declined 
to comment about remaining or ongoing investigations.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft credited an explosion of the illegal 
drug paraphernalia industry to the advent of the Internet in a press 
release announcing the results of the two operations.

"This illegal billion-dollar industry will no longer be ignored by law 
enforcement," Ashcroft said, and called the sting operations decisive steps 
to dismantling the industry.

The offenders were arrested for being in violation of three sections of the 
law and were charged with "conspiracy to sell and offering to sell various 
types of drug paraphernalia."

Along with the arrests, millions of dollars worth of paraphernalia was seized.

This included metal, wooden, acrylic, glass, stone, plastic or ceramic 
pipes with or without screens, permanent screens, hashish heads, or 
punctured metal, water pipes, carburetion tubes and devices, smoking and 
carburetion masks, roach clips, miniature spoons, chamber pipes, carburetor 
pipes, electric pipes, air driven pipes, chillums, bongs, ice pipes or 
chillers, wired cigarette papers and cocaine freebase kits.

DeGarmo said that any one of these items is illegal, and if they are 
possessed or sold, the law is being broken.

"Anybody that is in violation of the statute would be subject to 
investigation," she said, but added that although more investigations may 
be occurring, legitimate and user-friendly retailers of tobacco pipes or 
cigarette rolling papers were not a target.

Evans said the end result of the operations was the product of several 
years of investigation by the administration.

"For years, we've been fighting the stem of drugs and drug trafficking," he 
said.

A Denton smoke shop, the Zebra's Head, was unaffected by the 
administration's operations, and declined to comment on the issue.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager