[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
<snip>
(Yes, meth pipes. Those tiny polyester roses in little clear plastic tubes. Who on God’s green earth do you think actually wants to buy a tiny fake rose for three bucks? Nobody, that’s who. Not a single person has ever bought one for the rose. But plenty of people want a small plastic tube that can easily be converted into a pipe for smoking meth. And you buy your gas from the guy who sells them.)
[/QUOTE]
Umm… Aren’t those glass?
Also, who rolls their own using a large cognac-flavored cigar wrapper? 
[QUOTE=Diomedes]
I haven’t leafed through an HT for years,
[/QUOTE]
Heh (my bolding)
My stepbrother works at a (ahem) “tobacco shop” in Seattle that sells wrapping paper, bongs, etc. The reason the shop is allowed to operate is that no one in the store, either customers or workers, is allowed to mention illegal drugs or their paraphinelia. The store posts signs that “anyone using [drug related terms like bong or crack pipe] will be refused service”. Multiple people have been evicted from the shop for mentioning illegal drugs or drug related terms. Not only has the place not been raided, but it’s actually received an alcohol license last month.
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
(Yes, meth pipes. Those tiny polyester roses in little clear plastic tubes. Who on God’s green earth do you think actually wants to buy a tiny fake rose for three bucks?
[/QUOTE]
I did wonder.
Cite? This seems like BS to me.
Besides, MJ is de facto legal in many places that simply chose not to enforce existing laws, and actually legal as medical MJ in some areas.
[QUOTE=Derleth]
Neat trick, given that Holland is a region in the Netherlands.
[/QUOTE]
and England.
Well, here’s the thing.
It’s not illegal to have a picture of a pot plant. It’s not illegal to write an article about how much you like smoking pot, or about how you smoked pot yesterday with some buddies and here’s some pictures of you and your buddies smoking pot. In fact, it isn’t against the law to smoke pot, or to be stoned from smoking pot.
It IS usually illegal to possess pot, or to sell or buy it. And this is because of evidentiary issues. If somone has a baggie of pot in their pocket, you can easily prove that they had a bag of some plant material in their pocket, and tests showed that the material was pot. But in order to prove that you had the pot, the cops have to catch you with the pot. A story in High Times about how you smoked pot yesterday isn’t good enough. In the same way, a story Modern Theif Magazine about how you shoplifted from a store isn’t good enough, unless they can identify the particular item you stole and the particular store you stole from. It isn’t enough to know that you steal things, they have to charge you with stealing a particular item on a particular day.
Now, it’s true that if you go around bragging about how you steal things, or smoke pot, that the cops might decide to follow you around and wait for you to steal something, or they think you’ve got a bag of pot, and then they can arrest you. But the fact is, the cops have better things to do with their time than to pick one guy, follow them around, and wait for them to commit a crime. Especially a crime of misdemenor marijuana possession.
And of course, there’s the issue of jurisdiction. Cops and prosecutors don’t have jurisdiction over crimes committed in another state. So even a video of you growing pot plants in your house will only open you up to prosecution from the cops in your state or locality. I suppose every police department in America could pick up a copy of High Times every month in the hopes that it would give them some leads. Heck, for all I know some police departments do.
So the people who publish High Times magazine have lawyers who advise them on what they can and can’t be prosecuted for, and they probably would be smart not to keep marijuana at the office. But the fact that High Times is still published after all these years is pretty good evidence that they know what the law is, and they are careful not to do anything that would let the cops prove they are breaking the law. Heck, for all I know the people who publish and write for High Times never actually smoke pot themselves, they just publish the magazine because it sells–like I can imagine a guy publishing a porn magazine who has no interest in porn himself, or a guy publishing a tattoo or exercise or literary or whatever magazine.
[QUOTE=42fish]
Presumably, you’d need proof that the photographer was actually in possession of the illegal substance rather than snapping pics of someone else’s stash.
[/QUOTE]
You’d also need to be able to prove that those pictures really were of an illegal substance and not just something that looked like it.
According to Kevin Smith in his Evening With Kevin Smith, it’s real:
[QUOTE=installLSC]
<snip>“tobacco shop”<snip>The store posts signs that “anyone using [drug related terms like bong or crack pipe] will be refused service”.<snip>
[/QUOTE]
You mean a head shop? Do the youngsters not learn this name in school anymore? 
The same policy holds on the East Coast. One of the shop help at Wonderland even told me they prefer not to call their bongs “bongs,” but water pipes.
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee]
How can anyone be busted for selling water bongs?
[/QUOTE]
They can be arrested by the Redundancy Police, along with the same people who sell “assless chaps.”
[QUOTE=Soapbox Monkey]
I would assume that the magazine, as with any other publication, contains pictures, and what more proof of possession of an illegal substance do you need than to have pictures of people actually using it or holding it or growing it?
[/QUOTE]
You can’t prove it was marijuana they were using in the photos (I’m sure it was)
The government doesn’t really care all that much about personal use. It’s a misdemeanor in more and more places every day. It’s more hassle than it’s worth to prosecute it as the Evil Demon Weed of the 60s and 70s.
[QUOTE=11811]
You mean a head shop? Do the youngsters not learn this name in school anymore?
The same policy holds on the East Coast. One of the shop help at Wonderland even told me they prefer not to call their bongs “bongs,” but water pipes.
[/QUOTE]
A couple of head shops in Springfield sell [del]Whippits[/del] Nitruous Oxide cannisters. A, er, friend told me. Anyway, go in there and ask for a box of Whippits and you’ll be shown the door, none too politely. Ask for a box of Nitruous Oxide cannisters and they’ll sell you their entire inventory if you have enough money.
I’ve sold some literature to the staff at High Times.
When discussing them, it is proper to refer to them as employees of the Trans High Corporation.
I fell out of my chair when I sent them their copy of Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany (Scientific American Library Paperback) and saw THC in the address.
[QUOTE=Derleth]
Neat trick, given that Holland is a region in the Netherlands.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t be such a pedant. You know as well as Harmonious Discord that the word “Holland” is commonly used (in both English and Dutch) to refer to the entire country, not just the province.
[QUOTE=installLSC]
My stepbrother works at a (ahem) “tobacco shop” in Seattle that sells wrapping paper, bongs, etc. The reason the shop is allowed to operate is that no one in the store, either customers or workers, is allowed to mention illegal drugs or their paraphinelia. The store posts signs that “anyone using [drug related terms like bong or crack pipe] will be refused service”. Multiple people have been evicted from the shop for mentioning illegal drugs or drug related terms. Not only has the place not been raided, but it’s actually received an alcohol license last month.
[/QUOTE]
We talked about this here: Legal Scholars: What makes a piece of smoking apparatus illegal?
[QUOTE=Gfactor]
We talked about this here: Legal Scholars: What makes a piece of smoking apparatus illegal?
[/QUOTE]
Boy, you sure no how to kill a thread.
[QUOTE=HeyHomie]
A couple of head shops in Springfield sell [del]Whippits[/del] Nitruous Oxide cannisters. A, er, friend told me. Anyway, go in there and ask for a box of Whippits and you’ll be shown the door, none too politely. Ask for a box of Nitruous Oxide cannisters and they’ll sell you their entire inventory if you have enough money.
[/QUOTE]
Similarly, gay sex shops sell poppers (amyl nitrate) under the labels “video head cleaner” or “room deodorizer.” If you’ve ever smelled poppers, you know you don’t want your room to smell like that.
As a point of interest (or not), High Times magazine and other drug literature (as well as pretty much all paraphernalia) was illegal in Canada in the late 1980s.
It wasn’t really part of my lifestyle in those days, but I remember how everything was gone from the shops - magazines, books, flavoured rolling papers, pipe screens, etc.