Pubdate: Tue, 06 Jan 2004
Source: Fayetteville Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2004 Fayetteville Observer
Contact:  http://www.fayettevillenc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/150
Author: Matt Leclercq, Staff writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

EVERYDAY ITEMS OFTEN USED AS DRUG PARAPHERNALIA

When Jamie Nordan wanted a crack pipe, he needed only to walk into his 
neighborhood convenience store.

Some stores are one-stop shopping for drug paraphernalia, no questions 
asked. Small glass tubes with pea-size fake roses inside make for perfect 
crack pipes - just take out the flower. The same stores stock scouring 
pads, sometimes sold by the chunk, that users like for filters.

To addicts, some convenience stores around Fayetteville are just that: 
convenient.

"When you smoke, you don't want to spend a lot of time in the store," said 
Nordan, now in a recovery program at Hope Harbor Christian Mission. "You 
want to go in quickly. Go in, get what you want to get and get out."

What seems like innocent gas-station merchandise to most customers is 
actually easily attainable and legal drug paraphernalia. Users and police 
officers know it. Much of the time, convenience store workers know it, too.

"It's very frustrating when you put your life on the line every day and go 
out to try to make a dent in illegal drugs," said Fayetteville police Sgt. 
David Pait, "and you walk into any convenience store which seems to be 
promoting items that are used for drugs."

The glass-tubed roses are popular because they can withstand the heat 
required to cook the crack cocaine with a lighter. The flame goes in one 
end of the 4-inch tube, and the user smokes from the other end. With the 
roses, the tubes are marketed as novelty gifts, sometimes prominently 
displayed on store counters.

Most convenience stores also sell cheap cigars that are popular for 
scraping out the tobacco and filling with marijuana, though cigars fall 
under state tobacco laws that prohibit sales to minors. No law prevents 
stores from selling the tubed roses to minors.

The Fayetteville Observer found those items and more at convenience stores 
around the area. In a few hours, a reporter purchased glass tubes with 
roses at four stores in Fayetteville, Spring Lake and Hoke County near the 
Cumberland County line. They cost between $2 and $5.

Three stores kept the tubes on the counter or behind glass. In one store, 
the tubes were hidden beneath the counter and were available only when the 
reporter asked for one. At a Spring Lake store, the attendant said the 
store didn't sell roses but referred the reporter - who made no mention of 
drugs - to a display of small plastic bags, dime-size filter screens and 
straight razors that were hanging near the cash register. The items can be 
used to package and use drugs.

When asked where someone could buy a rose in a tube, the attendant referred 
the reporter to Murchison Road.

Legal Lines

Such items are legal under state law as long as they're not sold 
specifically for drug-related purposes. An object becomes illegal if one of 
several factors fall into place, such as the proximity of the object to 
drugs, the existence of drug residue, or instructions and advertising that 
tell people how to use it illegally.

The law also considers an object to be paraphernalia when the seller 
"reasonably should know" the buyer's illegal intentions.

But enforcing paraphernalia laws, or banning the sale of commonly used 
objects, can be difficult. Many items that make good crack pipes have 
everyday uses - a soda can, a toilet paper tube, a hollow antennae from a 
car. The tubed roses, though perhaps not the most romantic gift, also are 
protected under the law.

"Regulating something like that is going to be difficult, because it's 
going to be used commonly for legitimate purposes," said Ed Childress, a 
special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington.

In some cities, activists and politicians have fought the sale of 
questionable merchandise in convenience stores. A group in Seattle staged a 
boycott and convinced gas corporations to have their stores stop selling 
certain items, including the tubed roses.

Mike Roskind, a former Seattle police officer, formed the group in 2001 
after growing worried by how many teens were buying paraphernalia for 
methamphetamines at gas stations.

"You should not be marketing to my children in a place that is supposed to 
be respectable," he said. "They went too far. This is where the line in the 
sand was easily drawn."

Pressure on Stores

Police and sheriff's investigators here say there's little chance of 
outlawing the sale of paraphernalia. Yet lawmen and some who are involved 
in drug treatment programs say they wish stores would take the initiative 
to stop selling the items. Some stores have already stopped - the Observer 
found a few where attendants said they no longer stock the tubed roses. One 
store manager, who declined to be interviewed, said her store stopped 
selling the roses after she found out what they were used for.

"You've got to start somewhere," said Patsy Keisler, the residential case 
manager at Hope Harbor. "I just don't think you're supposed to make it that 
convenient for them."

Hope Harbor on Black and Decker Road offers an 18-month, live-in program 
for men who are dependent on drugs and alcohol. Nordan, who used to buy 
crack paraphernalia at convenience stores, and other former users say it 
was common knowledge which stores sold paraphernalia. The tubed rose was 
ideal because it was small, the glass could withstand heat, and it could be 
used over and over.

Woody Inman, the recovery program manager at Hope Harbor, said the tubes 
should be illegal.

"That's a crack pipe," he said. "I don't care what they put in it - a rose, 
a turd. It's a crack pipe," Inman said. "You're going to find them in bad 
neighborhoods, in neighborhoods where they sell dope. How many times do you 
go in to buy a half of a Brillo pad at a gas station for cleaning? It 
should be illegal to sell it that way."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager