My question is: Is there a law against me taking a Water Pipe, Bong, Hookah etc…out into public and smoking tobacco out of it? I don’t think it is, especially because when I bought it they told me it was only for tobacco ;). But seriously, when does something like this become drug related paraphernalia? And so, if it is legal, how come there aren’t more people using these fine smoking accessories in public?
I’m probably wrong, but bongs seem to fall into the “guilty by association” mentality.
I got busted on a drug paraphenalia charge. Basically they just have to prove that it has been used for smoking illegal substances. In my case the proof was that the bowl smelled like pot to the officer. My defense was that there are other legal substances that I could have smoked that would smell like pot, in fact that were designed to smell like pot, and they should have done a more conclusive test. Didn’t work.
I was busted by U.S. Customs at the Canada/U.S. border once. The Customs agent just happened to ask ask for a peek into my ashtray and low and behold, there was a pipe in there! (Who knew?) I was told that, “with the new Zero Tolerance” laws, my car could be impounded and auctioned. Then I was submitted to a full on body search while my car was being investigated by other anxious customs agents.
When all was said and done, they told me that I could be busted for the “residue” in my pipe, slapped my hand, forced me to sign an authorization allowing them to incinerate the paraphernalia (my favorite hand made pipe I must add), and then sent on my way.
(What they didn’t know is that the last of my stash had been consumed just prior to reaching the border tee-hee-hee)
My advice is: If you’re gonna use the bong for the consumption of “legal herbs and tobacco” in public, just make damn sure that you haven’t priorly used it for any illegal substances.
Oh yeah! Drugs R Bad N’kay
In Wisconsin you can be charged only if the paraphernalia has drug residue in it, so if you use your bong to smoke tobacco (yeah, right :rolleyes:) you would be fine here. When cops bust someone here for paraphernalia they have to test the residue to confirm it is contraban. Also, paraphernalia is ANY item used to consume illegal drugs, so if you hollow out a watermelon and smoke herb with it, the melon is illegal paraphernalia.
By the time the cops got that evidence into court it would be a rotting mess, though!
Nope, nothing illegal about smoking tobacco out of a bong. (Although I think there are some states that either are now, or are moving to make even unused paraphernalia illegal) My stoner friends and I have talked about it frequently. As long as there had never been an illegal substance smoked out of it, you can’t get in any trouble, but you should be prepared to be arrested. They will confiscate it and test it. When the test comes up negative, I don’t know what happens. They should give it back to you, but who knows.
Dan, I don’t know where you are, what country, etc., but hre in the USA we don’t do that. As we say, possession is 9/10ths of the law…
I’ve seen a coffeehouse in Westwood Village (California) where people were smoking tobacco out of a large hookah which stood on the ground like a tall lamp. Several people
could share the hookah at one time because there were several mouthpieces. This was outside in front, of course,
since there’s no public smoking indoors.
But anti-smoking forces are beginning to encroach on outside areas too, including even parks; the city of West Hollywood is considering allowing landlords to ban smoking in their
buildings. And you thought having to hide the cats and their toys was bad.
So probably the question will soon be moot.
They made it illegal to sell drug paraphernlia in stores. Pipes, papers, etc … Well of course the stores still carry all of this stuff but you can’t go in and tell the guy behind the counter you’d like to see that nice hash pipe in the display. He’ll quickly tell you to just point at what you’d like to see.
I still have a beautiful hookah which sits in my front window. Stuck flowers in it - now it’s technically a vase 
I knew a guy that got arrested and charged under paraphernalia laws for rolling papers. No dope, no residue, no nothing. He had a pack of Zig Zags (purchased 100% legally in a convenience store) and a cop who didn’t like him. The cop’s rationale was that since he didn’t have any tobacco on him, and he was a teenager, he must be using the papers for pot. sigh 
Technically, you should be legally be allowed to use a residue-free piece of paraphernalia in public without legal problems. Like the example in CA, there’s places in DC (Chi Cha Lounge being one) where they have hookahs set up for patrons to smoke tobacco.
That’s in theory- in practice you easily could run into a cop that’ll haul you in and make you jump through hoops until conclusive results come back that what you’re smoking isn’t pot and your paraph. hasn’t been used for it (or more likely they’ll confiscate it and send you on your way).
If you refer to it as a “bong” you may have problems. I remember in AZ when I was in a head shop because I was ummmm…writing a research paper… that if you referred to a waterpipe as a “bong” they would not sell to you as a “waterpipe” was the correct name for the piece being used for tobacco, “bong” was for pot. I don’t know if this is still adhered to or what a cop could do if you did say “bong”.
ha… I had a weird friend who used to take a little brass pipe to bars and smoke tobacco out of it. It definitely looked like a marijuana pipe. He always waited for people to come up to him and ask for a hit, and they’d take a big drag, then cough their guts out because it was harsh tobacco instead of the pot they were expecting. What a wanker.
I remember in Denver a few years back, they had a paraphernalia sweep… hit all of the head shops, took all the of evidence, and put the smaller things in evidence ‘baggies’. (You know - ziploc bags) One of the things that they baggied up were the store’s supply of baggies… because they ‘could be used to transport and/or store drugs’
(I remember reading this in the Denver independent weekly - whose name escapes me - it’s been over seven years)
Quite honestly, more than once I have been tempted to buy a bong for tobacco to try to wean myself off of cigarettes. If nothing else, the mechanics of having to load it every time I wanted a nicotine fix seemed like it could help…that, and not being able to smoke in the car any more (which any smoker knows is an incredibly hard habit to break, especially on long car rides). I haven’t quite grown the stones to try it, but I still don’t think it’s a bad idea.
I don’t think rolling papers SHOULD fall under paraphenalia laws in the first place…two of my friends buy them strictly to roll their own cigarettes, one of them in the same vein as my bong idea…because he has to REALLY want that cigarette to go to the trouble and bother of rolling it. Any good tobacco shop has a decent selection of loose cigarette tobacco…people are still rolling their own, for crying out loud.
If a person under the age of 18 is busted for having rolling papers, it had better be made damned clear that not only tobacco products are forbidden them, but also tobacco paraphenalia. They should NOT be charged under drug paraphenalia laws. That’s just my opinion, of course.
I believe here in Virginia a convience store owner was charged with selling paraphenalia. He was evidently selling these little glass tubes that held tiny fake roses. They are open on both ends and have a little corks. Evidently they are nothing more than crack pipes. Of course they haven’t banned the sale of “Chore Boy” which is a fine steel wool you can purchase at any hardware store. A little piece is stuffed into the tube as a filter. Anyway I think they charged the guy and it made the news. He claimed he didn’t know that the tiny rose tubes were being used as crack pipes. Although his store was situated in a crack neighborhood.
Many stores and gas stations around here sell rolling papers now. For awhile you didn’t see much of them at all and now they seem to be back. But in my state I don’t think you can purchase a bong. At least the “head shops” that were around in the 70s are long gone now.
Needs2know
I don’t know…I’ve heard that there are many, many reasonably-priced bongs to be had in Virginia Beach. Not that I know anyone who would go to buy one except for purposes of smoking tobacco. Neither me nor any of my friends do any kind of drugs, of course. They’re illegal.
As a side note…it is strange to me that a convenience store owner being busted for selling paraphenalia made the news. Are you in NoVa? Here in Richmond it seems as though it happens all the time, but I’ve always heard about it through word-of-mouth…never in the news.
And I never give my husband oral sex, because that’s illegal. And we always have sex in the missionary position, because anything else is illegal. And we never had sex before we got married (nor did we cohabitate) because, in Virginia, all of these things are illegal.
And gawd knows, I would never dare to break ANY laws.
(Sorry about that hijack there, folks.)
…a hookah for tobacco I can understand, but who could possibly smoke tobacco in a bong? The manner in which
tobacco is smoked differs a great deal from that in which
cannabis is smoked. In my heavy cannabis smoking days (ahem) many years ago, someone once offered me a toke on
a joint that contained both, and I could harly stand it.
I could smoke one or the other, but not both in the same
pipe or cig.
Funny thing is that you can buy really old opium bottles legally. They are very pretty & usually have a spoon inside. I bought some in California. There are some at ebay.com too.
Oh, I beg to differ. There’s one about ten minutes from here.
Whoops, hit “submit” too soon.
I meant to add that just withing the past couple years, I’ve been to head shops in Philly, New Orleans, Las Vegas, and Lafayette, LA. Head shops are alive and well. They have really bloated prices, though. The online head shops are much better.