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BoomerD
No Lifer
- Feb 26, 2006
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While I know there are lots of places that sell "smoking equipment and paraphernalia, I haven't seen a "true" head shop since the early 70's. Spokane had one that opened in the 60's...lasted into the mid-70's, located right next to the "hippie coffee house." The owner was a fairly nice guy...but his store always smelled...funny. Not just incense...but, his poster selection was top notch...
- Nov 28, 2001
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Aside from smoking IN the store which you can't do in today's head shops what differed about the store. Did he sell pot directly? Here in Vancouver we do having the Amsterdam Cafe:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=amster...=XhK8DWpncYwgEnKUR0TAZw&cbp=12,49.17,,0,-0.68
I understand it smells funny in there a lot. The police here don't give a shit unless you are distributing tons of the stuff. I should try it some day.
BoomerD
No Lifer
- Feb 26, 2006
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No, he didn't sell pot...or at least, not openly. It was rumored that he might be able to help you score...but it wasn't advertised...and the cops never found anything more than "personal consumption amounts."
Besides...with the hippie coffeehouse right next door...there was always pot available from someone.
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BoomerD
No Lifer
- Feb 26, 2006
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Maybe. I don't know for sure. Like I said, I haven't seen an actual "head shop" in almost 40 years. Occasionally, one of the cigarette stores will have pipes and bongs, or some convenience store...but that's the closest I've seen.
I don't do drugs and to the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone who does drugs.
- Nov 28, 2001
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I don't either. Well that's a lie I drink alcohol and take gravol to get to sleep (by get to sleep I mean relax myself to sleep).
Here is the head shop I'm thinking of in Vancouver:
http://www.cottonmouthsmokeshop.ca/
http://maps.google.com/?ll=49.28072...=KYtnzQ0CmB54RzWba-KEwg&cbp=12,234.31,,1,3.54
How would that compare?
BoomerD
No Lifer
- Feb 26, 2006
- 64,039
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Meh...while both are indeed drugs, I don't consider them in the same classification...unless you're doing that gravol for recreation instead of its prescribed purpose. Drugs prescribed for a certain purpose/cure/treatment are medicines.
Alcohol IS the most widely abused drug...no arguments there, but at least at this time, it's a LEGAL drug, but one that's NOT regulated by the FDA.
I haven't seen anything lately like the "real" head shops in the 70's. You could buy stuff at most record stores also. They sold Concert Kits - a pipe, papers, roach clip and a screen in a small acrylic box for $3.00.
Nowadays the paraphernalia is still out there but seems a bit more obscured.
Somewhere around the late 80's/early 90's there were changes in the tolerance level for head shops beginning with Nancy Reagan's anti-drug campaign. I remember many raids in Pennsylvania, and it seemed to effectively put a damper on the industry.
"On February 24, 2003, US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the indictments of 55 individuals on charges of selling drug paraphernalia. The arrests were based on two federal investigations: Operation Pipe Dreams in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Operation Headhunter in Des Moines, Iowa.
But the scope was "extra jurisdictional." In other words, the busts spanned America. Across the nation, 2,000 federal, state and local officers had swept down on unsuspecting business people.
The busts came down in Idaho, Texas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Several of the people indicted were well known; the most notorious was comedian actor Tommy Chong, who served 9 months in federal prison. Chris Hill, founder of Chills, a well-known purveyor of rolling papers and other smoking products, got 14 months.
The 2003 busts signaled a sea of change in federal paraphernalia prosecutions. Up to that time, most investigations were aimed at retailers. Now the target was the distributors and manufacturers.
Another new development was the seizure of distributors' Internet sites. The government didn't just seize these websites, but they replaced them with an antidrug message. "
"But in 1990 the Supreme Court ruled drug-paraphernalia violators could be subject to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) and money laundering charges. That gave an incentive to prosecutors: they could seize assets, cash, and other holdings in the same way they prosecute organized crime and money laundering. Kinda-not-really illegal In 1994 the U.S. Supreme Court dealt another blow to the paraphernalia industry with the Posters N' Things decision, which approved a so-called "subjective standard" for defining what drug paraphernalia is."
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4413.html
Nowadays the paraphernalia is still out there but seems a bit more obscured.
Somewhere around the late 80's/early 90's there were changes in the tolerance level for head shops beginning with Nancy Reagan's anti-drug campaign. I remember many raids in Pennsylvania, and it seemed to effectively put a damper on the industry.
"On February 24, 2003, US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the indictments of 55 individuals on charges of selling drug paraphernalia. The arrests were based on two federal investigations: Operation Pipe Dreams in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Operation Headhunter in Des Moines, Iowa.
But the scope was "extra jurisdictional." In other words, the busts spanned America. Across the nation, 2,000 federal, state and local officers had swept down on unsuspecting business people.
The busts came down in Idaho, Texas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. Several of the people indicted were well known; the most notorious was comedian actor Tommy Chong, who served 9 months in federal prison. Chris Hill, founder of Chills, a well-known purveyor of rolling papers and other smoking products, got 14 months.
The 2003 busts signaled a sea of change in federal paraphernalia prosecutions. Up to that time, most investigations were aimed at retailers. Now the target was the distributors and manufacturers.
Another new development was the seizure of distributors' Internet sites. The government didn't just seize these websites, but they replaced them with an antidrug message. "
"But in 1990 the Supreme Court ruled drug-paraphernalia violators could be subject to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) and money laundering charges. That gave an incentive to prosecutors: they could seize assets, cash, and other holdings in the same way they prosecute organized crime and money laundering. Kinda-not-really illegal In 1994 the U.S. Supreme Court dealt another blow to the paraphernalia industry with the Posters N' Things decision, which approved a so-called "subjective standard" for defining what drug paraphernalia is."
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4413.html
There's plenty of head shops around here, additionally almost all the porn stores have started selling these items too.
rudder
Lifer
- Nov 9, 2000
- 19,441
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There are very few if any head shops in Tennessee.... however, there are quite a few stores that sell just tobacco, beer, and lotto tickets. These usually contain your papers, pipes, bongs, etc. The only true head shops are in towns where there are universities.
Saint Nick
Lifer
- Jan 21, 2005
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guyver01
Lifer
- Sep 25, 2000
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Ns1
No Lifer
- Jun 17, 2001
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guyver01
Lifer
- Sep 25, 2000
- 22,135
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lemme translate
Zin lives in a medium-sized town (~84k people), eh , with maybe, 3 head shops per block, eh. More seem to open up every other month, eh. He don't get it, eh.
Ns1
No Lifer
- Jun 17, 2001
- 55,418
- 1,598
- 126
Ok, so first off, do headshops exist? Short answer is absolutely. The long answer is that it pretty much varies by location as well as by degree. For instance, when I was in college there was a local tobacco shop. I went there with my roommate because we heard they sold hookahs there and he was interested in pricing one out. When we get there, the owner offered to show us "glass" from a special case behind the counter and proceeded to display about 50 hand-blown glass pipes and bongs that you simply wouldn't expect in that kind of shop. A few years later, however, an explicit headshop opened a few blocks away from there, but I believe they kept the door locked and you had to "buzz in". Compare that to, say, NYC where I feel like half of the tobacco shops as well as the shops that sell t-shirts and other trinkets often sell a wide variety of "tobacco" pipes. In both cases, there is generally a big sign indicating that all of the items are for tobacco use only.
Now that leads to the follow up point: In many states it's a crime to possess drug paraphernalia with the intent to use it for an unlawful purpose (i.e. to ingest drugs). The difficult part of that crime is proving the intent. If you've got a pipe that you smoked marijuana from your intent can be implied, but if it's not used and you don't have drugs in your possession you can argue it was for tobacco use.
So the short answer is: Yes head shops exist in America, at least in some places, but possession of drug paraphernalia can still be a crime and the retailers have taken steps to try to avoid that.
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I didn't mean I didn't understand him. I was sharing his puzzlement at the situation.
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