BONGS OR PIPES? JUDGE WEIGHS QUESTION

Seized: Items Taken As Drug Paraphernalia' With Defective Search Warrant.

The city wants Doug Myers' bongs.

And Myers, owner of The Black Market, wants them back. Only he calls them
pipes.

The pipes, or bongs, were the subject of a hearing Friday in which two
attorneys asked a judge to figure out if items seized with a defective
search warrant can be considered contraband.

Some 31 boxes of goods were taken by Anchorage police from The Black Market
in March, after the Anchorage Assembly made it a criminal offense to sell
"drug paraphernalia." City attorneys later determined something was wrong
with the search warrant and didn't charge Myers with a criminal offense.

But they also didn't return his stuff, including scales, plastic Baggies,
water pipes, also known as bongs, other kinds of pipes and tubing. Earlier
this summer, the city agreed to return some of the items but refused to
give back the pipes, arguing their sole use is to smoke marijuana.

Besides making the sale of drug paraphernalia a criminal offense, the
ordinance defines as illegal "any items whose objective characteristics or
objective manufacturer's design indicate that it is intended for use in the
consumption, ingestion, inhalation, injection, or other method of
introduction of a controlled substance into the human body."

"(The Black Market) is the place to go to buy your crack pipes. It's the
place to go to buy your pot pipes," assistant municipal prosecutor John
McConnaughy argued Friday. "It's contraband and should not be returned to
Mr. Myers."

Myers' attorney, Lance Wells, said Myers sells pipes for tobacco users and
has been selling them since 1973.

"The pipes have a legitimate use," he said.

Just about anything can be defined as drug paraphernalia under the
ordinance, Wells argued; and how can Myers be held responsible for what
people later do with the purchased items?

If the city's logic holds, a gun company should be held responsible when
someone uses their product in a robbery, he said.

At an earlier hearing, Wells introduced testimony by an out-of-state pipe
expert, who explained the history and many legal uses of pipes.

Anchorage District Judge Gregory Motyka said he would make a decision
within two weeks. Police seized items in 1997 from The Black Market and
three other businesses, but eventually returned everything.

Still pending is a drug paraphernalia criminal charge against Chris Main,
owner of Really Neat Stuff. Wells, who also represents Main, is challenging
the constitutionality of the ordinance in motions pending in that case.