EX-DETECTIVE FIGHTS TO GET DRUG PARAPHERNALIA OFF SHELVES

HICKORY - Not long ago, Reva Cook, a former police detective who now
helps convicted drug users recover from their addiction, went into a
local convenience store to get a soft drink.

A man stepped behind her in line at the counter, and she heard him
tell the clerk, "Hey man, I need a crack pipe and a lighter." She
said the clerk handed the man a disposable lighter and a small glass
tube that resembled a sun catcher.

"The guy took off and was in his car lighting up by the time I ...
left," Cook said. "He looked like a wreck -- like somebody we'd get
(in drug treatment court) in a week or two."

That got Cook to thinking: Why is it so easy to buy drug
paraphernalia? Why can people walk into nearly any convenience store
in town and pick up a device to smoke crack with or rolling paper to
make joints? Cook coordinates treatment for Catawba County's drug
treatment court, one of 17 such courts in the state that order
convicted drug users into treatment as part of their sentence.
Through the court, she sees the devastation that addictive drugs cause.

So her convenience store experience led her to ask local lawmakers
for regulation of drug paraphernalia sales, a licensing system to
control the sales and to raise money for drug treatment.

But now she wants to take that a step further -- get sales of drug
paraphernalia banned from convenience stores. Hickory City Council
has asked staff to research Cook's request, and Catawba County
commissioners plan to discuss it with area state legislators.

Cook wants to target convenience stores but bypass what are known as
"head shops," or stores that specialize in sales of bongs and other
items traditionally associated with illegal drug use.

She said that's because convenience stores attract a much wider
variety of people, including teenagers and recovering drug addicts,
who could find the items tempting but would otherwise not encounter
them. She said she isn't as familiar with head shops, so her goal
isn't to put them out of business. Several N.C. cities, including
Charlotte, ban the sale of the "drug stems" like the one the
convenience store clerk sold the man in line behind Cook. Selling the
devices is a violation punishable by a civil fine. Bans in other
cities resulted from concerned people pushing the issue, Cook said,
and that's also her goal.

"These things are triggers," Cook said. "Someone who is in recovery
and trying their best to get clean and sober is confronted with this
stuff, and sometimes it's more than they can handle."

Enforcing drug paraphernalia law is complex. Drug stems, bongs, key
chains in the shape of miniature scales, wrapping papers and other
paraphernalia are illegal in North Carolina -- if the person selling
them knows they'll be used for illegal drug consumption or markets
them for such use, police say. But these and other items sometimes
used to fashion crack pipes can also have legal uses, authorities
say, so it's hard to enforce that law. "If somebody walks in and
says, 'I need a crack pipe or a good bong to smoke marijuana from,
then you have a crime," said Hickory police Maj. Tom Adkins. "If you
just have a bong or whatever and there's no specific indication,
written or spoken, that it's for drug use, it's sort of hard. You
probably assume that, but assumptions don't get convictions in
court." For instance, Cook and police say, manufacturers dress up the
drug stems as novelties to give to a sweetheart -- many hold a tiny,
artificial rose inside. But they're sometimes sold alongside bags of
wire screens that authorities say users put in the stems to prevent
ingestion of crack rocks. The drug stems can be found at many
convenience stores in Hickory, often behind the counter, though store
owners and managers say they don't know if they're used for drugs.

At the First Express convenience store on N.C. 127 in Hickory,
Manager Linda Vang said she sells about a half dozen glass tubes with
the red roses each day, mostly to customers who look to be in their
early 20s. The store is just blocks from Hickory High School.

And in the Loose Leaf tobacco and beer shop on U.S. 70 in Long View,
owner Kou Lee said he buys the glass tubes from a vendor who peddles
them along with headache remedies.

If the tubes were banned, Lee said, it wouldn't hurt his business.
"It doesn't matter to me."

Though Jerry Yancey doesn't sell the glass tubes with the roses at
his Three Way Superette near Propst Crossroads near Hickory, he
surmised that an addict would find his tools elsewhere if such items
were banned. "If there's a will, there's a way," he said.

In fact, a woman recently came into the superette looking for a
specific copper pot scrubber, saying it's used in crack pipes. Adkins
said addicts on the streets typically make crack pipes from soft
drink bottles, car antennas and other items, instead of buying drug
stems. But Cook pointed out that teenagers and others, including
recovering addicts who might be tempted to use again, are easily
exposed to the convenience store merchandise.

"They might go in to get a pack of cigarettes, a hot dog and a Coke,"
Cook said, "and be faced with a bong on the counter."

Hickory Mayor Rudy Wright, who last year pushed for a new ordinance
that would prohibit businesses from displaying sex toys where minors
can see them, said the items Cook targets don't belong in
well-traveled shops where children shop.

"They can get it on the Internet, can't they?" Wright said, referring
to paraphernalia. "One of the problems we have in this society is our
children think we don't care