Calgary AB: City considering ban on drug paraphernalia

Calgary considers banning sale of drug paraphernalia

CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, September 07, 2007


CALGARY -- The city of Calgary is considering banning the sale of crack pipes, roach clips, water bongs and other drug paraphernalia.

Ald. Craig Burrows will urge his colleagues at Monday's council meeting to recommend city bureaucrats investigate ways to prohibit the sale of the materials."These people are (selling) to crack addicts, which is contributing to problems downtown," Burrows said.

The Criminal Code of Canada prohibits the sale of "instruments or literature for illicit drug use," but stores often put 'for tobacco use' labels on pipes and bongs in an effort to get around the law, and few city police forces enforce the federal law.

But Calgary may be fighting an uphill battle in trying to ban the sale of drug gear, says a legal expert -- especially since cities across Canada run programs that hand out clean, free needles to intravenous drug users.

"It's probably not a terribly well thought-out law (and) I would say that any city that tried a ban on its own would probably face a legal challenge based on the fact that it was violating federal jurisdiction - criminal law. I'd say a challenge like that would put up a very good fight,"said Ed Morgan, a law professor at the University of Toronto.

"(A needle exchange program) probably falls afoul of the law," he added.

In every province, drug users can get clean needles from more than 500 locations, including hospitals and pharmacies, according to an April 2007 report by the Canadian HIV/AIDSLegal Network.

Ottawa even ran a two-year program that provided clean crack cocaine pipes, although the city stopped funding it in July.

But Toronto isn't considering banning so-called head shops, said city spokesman Brad Ross.

"Iimagine there'd be some dispute over whether the city could do that -- and Idon't know how that would work, since we do have a needle exchange program," Ross said.

In March, however, Calgary police raided four stores and seized about 3,000 pipes, bongs and other items such as steel wool. The wool is often used as an improvised filter at the end of a crack pipe. They also seized marijuana and related products from one store.

As a result, 10 people were charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking, and selling an instrument for illicit drug use. The maximum penalty if convicted of the second charge is $100,000 and/or six months in jail for a first offence.

Some cities in British Columbia have put limits on the sale of drug paraphernalia. Langley prohibited the sale of paraphernalia to anyone under the age of 19 and made stores record and report all purchases to the RCMP.

Vancouver also has a bylaw that requires pipes, bongs and other items to be invisible from the street, not displayed in store windows and not sold to anyone under the age of 19.

But Chris Emery, the publisher of Vancouver's Cannabis Culture magazine, said if head shops are shut down, the sale of drug paraphernalia would simply go online, where police would have a harder time making sure vendors weren't also selling drugs to minors, for example.

"Transparency is better for any community, and that's what happens when you have a store selling it; the police can monitor it,"Emerson said.

"And besides, stores pay taxes."

Calgary Herald

With files from the Vancouver Province

© CanWest News Service 2007

Saturday, September 8, 2007

It's for tobacco, really (wink-wink, nudge-nudge)

Valerie Fortney
Calgary Herald


The Hemporium on 17th Avenue S.W. is one of many bong shops in Calgary.

The young woman behind the sales counter is friendly and helpful. That is, until I drop the P-bomb.

"How many bongs does the average pot smoker own?" I ask while scanning the shelves lined with glass bongs in every size and colour.

Immediately adopting a poker face, she responds, "They're for tobacco -- otherwise, we'd be contravening the law."

In every quadrant of our city, one can find shops where brightly coloured bongs line the shelves and a wide selection of pipes sit in glass cases. The stores have names like Grass Roots, Hemporium and Bongs and Such, just in case you still don't get the idea.

Known to some as "head shops," such businesses have been sprouting like, well, weeds all over booming Calgary. You can find them in Forest Lawn, in the northeast industrial area and in the tony shopping districts of Kensington and 17th Avenue S.W.

No matter where they're located, all the shops -- which warn customers at the door their products are "for tobacco use only" -- look pretty much the same once you step inside.

Along with the pipes and bongs, you can find hemp T-shirts, Cheech and Chong dolls, doormats that read

"Legalize It," flags emblazoned with the word "marijuana" and books like The Joint Rolling Handbook.

Nearly every one of the four shops I visit Friday are armed with young salespeople who provide lots of helpful advice on how to get your bong going, how to clean it after use and why you might want to invest $600 in the Volcano, a system inhaler imported from Germany that's billed as a healthier way to get your daily hit.

"This is where you put your 'smokeables,' " says one young man with no hint of a wink.

Just don't use the P- or M-word, though, or those pierced lips will tighten like a trap door.

No number of nudge-nudge, wink-winks, "Oh, you can tell me" pleas, either, will get any of them to admit that such products are targeted to marijuana users. "A lot of my elderly customers use these to smoke tobacco," says one blond surfer dude-type, wearing a hoodie with a giant cannabis leaf emblazoned on the chest, as he pulls a $200 bong off the shelf, "but I make a point not to ask."

Can we blame them?

Technically speaking, these shops just might be breaking the law. Section 472.2 of the Criminal Code of Canada states that is illegal to import, export, manufacture or sell instruments or literature for illicit drug use. In this case, then, loose lips really can sink ships.

And now, such entrepreneurs have another threat in the form of Ald. Craig Burrows, who confirms that he will urge his colleagues at Monday's council meeting to recommend city bureaucrats investigate ways to prohibit the sale of the materials.

It's little wonder, then, that after last March's raid on several businesses selling drug paraphernalia and now Burrows' charge, that getting any of these business owners to speak on the record is a fruitless endeavour.

"I don't want to get in the sights of anyone that wants us as a target for their election campaign," says one inner-city proprietor who wouldn't provide his name. "We're not activists, we're educators and businesspeople."

Still, people like Ed Morgan, a law professor at the University of Toronto, says such fears are unfounded.

Morgan, who successfully challenged the legality of Section 472.2's literature provisions in 1992, says the law has rarely been used because it's so difficult to prove.

"One can surmise by the proliferation of these stores all across the country that the law isn't being rigorously enforced," says Morgan. "Police forces have eased up on prosecuting for personal use of soft drugs, and the paraphernalia is another step removed from the actual drug."

Speaking to Ald. Burrows, one gets the feeling that while he's clearly passionate about cracking down on illicit drug use in our city, he may have jumped the gun on his plan to go after such businesses.

He says rather than employing the Criminal Code, he'd like to see if the city's bylaw services could get involved in stopping what he sees as a scourge on society.

"People think pot is harmless, but it's definitely a gateway drug," says Burrows, who says he wants to see if such measures as not renewing or out-and-out denying business licences is feasible.

At this, Chris Levy can't help but chuckle.

A few years back, says the University of Calgary law professor, Calgary city council tried to clean up prostitute strolls via the bylaw route. The case, Westendorp vs. The Queen, went to the Supreme Court and the bylaw was struck down as an unconstitutional invasion of the federal government's authority.

"If municipalities try to pass bylaws or manipulate permits or licences in such a way as to intrude into the area of criminal law," says Levy, "then they're exceeding their powers."

Levy says there's also a reason so few people have heard of Section 472.2 of the Criminal Code.

"That's because it's so difficult to prosecute, and it ties up a vast amount of investigative and prosecutorial resources," he says. "People like Mr. Burrows can ride all the hobby horses they want, but they should ride ones that are in the purview of local government."

In other words, while it may be a lofty goal to try to tackle the exploding problem of illicit drugs on our city streets, this is one fired-up idea that may quickly go up in smoke.

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Calgary city Alderman Craig Burrows proposal...

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Keith