Florida 'Bong Ban' Passes, Doesn't Really Ban Bongs All That Much

Jackeh

Jackeh

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/florida-bong-ban-passes_n_3156442.html

Florida is on the verge of sort-of-banning some types of bongs -- er, "utensils of death," according to a lawmaker -- after a House-approved drug paraphernalia ban passed in the Senate on Friday.

The bill originally listed drug paraphernalia as metal, wooden, acrylic, glass, stone, plastic, or ceramic smoking pipes, with or without screens, permanent screens, or punctured metal bowls; water pipes; carburetion tubes and devices; chamber pipes; carburetor pipes; electric pipes; air-driven pipes; chillums; bongs; and ice pipes or chillers. ("This is a comprehensive list of mellows that will be harshed," joked Stephen Colbert.)

But before passing, the bill was watered down to make it "unlawful for a person to knowingly and willfully sell or offer for sale at retail any drug paraphernalia... other than a pipe that is primarily made of briar, meerschaum, clay or corn cob."

Retailers, however, can still sell the devices for use with tobacco -- so if signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott as expected, the bill won't have much effect.

Previously, head shop inventory was regulated so that it could only be sold in shops that earn 75 percent or more of their income from tobacco sales.

"Rather than just regulating them, let's just ban them," Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg), who sponsored the House bill, told the Broward New Times. "If we can make people drive to Georgia and Alabama and South Carolina to get fireworks, they can drive to get these utensils of death."

Now any head shop proprietor found in violation of the bill will be charged with a first-degree misdemeanor; subsequent violations will result in a third-degree felony charge.
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"Rather than just regulating them, let's just ban them," Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg), who sponsored the House bill, told the Broward New Times. "If we can make people drive to Georgia and Alabama and South Carolina to get fireworks, they can drive to get these utensils of death."
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No one has ever died from cannabis.
So what in the name of God is this fool babbling about?
 
They have a total ban on bongs here but it seems the shops have started selling oil pourers instead...
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Elegant dinner party pourer. Easy to use, limits spillage and looks great! Made from strong Pyrex Glass it is quick and easy to clean. Uses include: Milk, Oil, Salad Dressing, Vinegar, Juice and much more!
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Ban the bong...new campaign for disarmament of marijuana smokers smooth hits in florida. Cough cough.
 
Jackeh said:
Isn't it kind of silly to be banning bongs, seeing as they are a healthier alternative to smoking joints?
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The recovery industry is huge in Florida. They have a different notion of harm reduction. Abstinence, abstinence, abstinence.

(I'm not just free associating; this bill and the "instruments of death" language was inspired by the recovery industry)

Is there any non-opioid recovery program in the world that allows for moderation instead of abstinence? I don't see why we can have methadone and suboxone for opioid addicts, but no substitution therapy for stimulant or depressant addicts.
 
Jackeh said:
Isn't it kind of silly to be banning bongs, seeing as they are a healthier alternative to smoking joints?
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"Kind of Silly" is an oversimplification.

Absolutely logistically absurd yet fiscally productive? Quite possibly.

Sounds like they're trying to hype up tobacco a bit in rebuttal to allowing for the integration of any alternative to papered tobacco products.

Big lobbyists in action here.
 
Is there any non-opioid recovery program in the world that allows for moderation instead of abstinence? I don't see why we can have methadone and suboxone for opioid addicts, but no substitution therapy for stimulant or depressant addicts.
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I'm not sure about depressants (the closest I can think is some muscle relaxants people have claimed help with alcohol addiction, but it never became wide spread, or pharmacies/doctors which have given benzos out on a daily/weekly etc basis to dependent patients, but I've never heard of any widespread institutional program) but I know multiple studies have been done on stimulant addiction. I haven't read the studies myself, but my rather cursory thought on the issue is that for reasons to do with the nature of stimulants and stimulant addiction, it wouldn't work particularly well.
 
One Thousand Words said:
They have a total ban on bongs here but it seems the shops have started selling oil pourers instead...
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Yeah i'm not sure how this works, but if you search for 'buy bongs online australia' there are at least 4 shops selling just about any type of bong anyone wonts. I wonder why they don't get cracked down on, not that i care. And even if all bongs did get totally banned from sale anywhere i'm sure kids and some adults would still use the good old aussie orchy.

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^ Which is from the power house museum lol -

Hits from the bong

People are usually quite shocked when I tell them we have this bong in the Museum collection. Perhaps because the type of bong shown above is hand-made? Common? Looks a little like rubbish?
I’m not sure why it is so shocking, museums all over the world have drug paraphernalia in their collections. The Powerhouse itself has a nice collection of opium pipes, ceramic water pipes, and syringes.
This particular bong was collected by the Health and Medicine Curator in 1996, and she states -

The smoking of marijuana is becoming an increasingly common recreational pursuit in Australia. Even though marijuana remains an illicit drug, many kinds of manufactured bongs are freely available in specialty shops. However, amongst young people with limited incomes, the home-made, disposable bong is very popular. Often referred to as ‘Orchy bongs’, after a brand of orange juice, they are made from a plastic sport drink or juice bottle fitted with a piece of garden hose. The rise in popularity of this style of marijuana smoking explains the mysterious rash of chopped hoses in the front gardens of Australian suburbia in recent years.

The advantages of this kind of bong are; Firstly, they are cheap – manufactured bongs are expensive and often breakable, whereas the only outlay for the user(s) of an Orchy bong is the metal cone. Secondly, they are disposable, so that when they become dirty and smelly they do not have to be cleaned but can simply be thrown away. Disposable bongs are a common sight in gutters, stormwater drains, parks, beaches and other places where rubbish accumulates.
This particular example was found in a street gutter in Ultimo, an inner-city area of Sydney. It is made from a … drink bottle and is decorated with graffiti-style insults, probably written with a green … paint pen. For the Powerhouse Museum collection, it is a significant example of the ephemera of life in the 1990s.

I thought I would write this blog post as a reminder that not all museum objects are shiny, pretty, or expensive. Some come straight from the gutter, yet are intrinsically valuable in the power they possess to tell a story.

- See more at: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/insidethecollection/2011/11/hits-from-the-bong/#sthash.c04U6vWc.dpuf
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What a shit bong, they should have a longer hose (so you don't burn your face) and bend it up (so your cone doesn't empty on the ground)

If they want a museum piece imagine how valuable an orchy bottle billy would be.
 
My high school days were during Canada's brief bong/pipe/book ban that lasted about 5 years. That plastic bottle ghetto pipe looks familiar needs more tape lol. You get good at building them when you cant buy one. Still we used a lot of can pipes and foil pipes and just terrible materials to be heating, not good.
 
I thought the real utensil of death was the spork or grapefruit spoon. This ban is stupid. Cant ppl just go online to aqualab tech and buy a nice peice and have it shipped to them in fl? There are so many sites that sell all that banned stuff anyways. Or by the looks of it stick a cork in the top and voilla an oil porer. Just like the glass "pens" that look a lot like a crack stem they sell in gas stations around here after they cracked down on the fake rose tube things.
 
In Oklahoma, a law has passed stating that attempted manufacturing of hash carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. That's bad, but the horrifying part is that a grinder counts as evidence of attempted hash manufacturing due to the kief collector.
This shit scares me. I occasionally make trips to Oklahoma to make related purchases. I'm pretty sure I've taken my grinder before.
 
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