Tommy Chong won't be having "Nice Dreams" for a while.
On Sept. 10, the lovable comedian who starred as "Man" (or was it "Dude"?) in the comedy duo Cheech and Chong was sentenced to nine months in prison and received a $20,000 fine for distributing marijuana pipes over the Internet.
Chong's arrest and conviction are part of "Operation Pipe Dreams," the Drug Enforcement Agency and Attorney General John Ashcroft's plan to crack down on black-market distributors of drug paraphernalia over the Web.
While the sentence may be a little strict - and almost certainly has something to do with Chong's portrayal of a well-loved stoner in the popular Cheech and Chong movies - it is about time businesses like his face the music.
Regardless of the argument that if alcohol is legal then marijuana should also be, marijuana still is illegal in this country; therefore, businesses that specialize in the sale of bongs, pipes and other drug paraphernalia should be outlawed as well.
Our country really needs to cut back on its paradoxical practices: We say marijuana is illegal, but then we have places like Chong's where one can buy practically all of the essentials needed for an "I'm a Little Pothead" starter kit.
Businesses that peddle these products will say the products are intended for smoking tobacco. But if you walk into a place like DJ's Smoke shop, undoubtedly you will find plenty of clues that tip you off to what they are really used for smoking - doge (pronounced doezsch), as I like to call it.
To their credit, many of these places actually do sell tobacco. But they also sell hats and shirts with big pot leaves on them, copies of the current High Times magazine, the symbols 4 and 20 in a myriad of fashions. and enough Bob Marley merchandise to dig Jamaica out of economic peril for the next few decades. Smoke shops are only a step away from lighting up some chronic for customers to sample.
That would definitely not be legal, and these stores shouldn't be allowed to sell the "glassware" that they do either. If these bongs and pipes were used for smoking tobacco, as smoke shops claim, then there would be a lot of people sitting around on campus hitting their bongs with a big tin of tobacco next to them.
You don't see that. And you never see someone walking down the street lighting up his or her new glass pipe; these things aren't used to smoke tobacco, and they are not being used in a lawful manner.
Some people will say the devices are artwork, but you don't put a pinch of weed in the Mona Lisa's mouth and smoke it out of her head. Also, these little sculptures don't sit on a mantle somewhere; they hide in pockets and backpacks. Then, when the police find you with these miniature masterpieces, you have the artistic opportunity to be charged with possession of drug paraphernalia ... I mean, art.
Perhaps with proper taxation and regulation we could free up a little prison space for people who deserve to be there more than your average pothead does. Don't mistake this for an endorsement for smoking doge. It has been proven to cause problems over time like other harmful substances such as cigarettes, caffeine, alcohol, grease, depressing movies and dating.
Whether or not pot should be legal will be debated for years to come. But as long as marijuana is illegal, businesses that sell pot paraphernalia should be, too.
Chris Fanning is a journalism junior. Reach him at christopher.fanning@asu.edu.
