STORE RULINGS IN DUPAGE ADD A TWIST TO DRUG WAR

DuPage County Judge Michael Galasso's recent ruling in a drug paraphernalia
case is either the latest surgical strike in the war on drugs or
"McCarthyism ignorance" toward alternative approaches to smoking legal
substances.

It all depends on how one perceives the items sold at Sight & Sound in
Westmont and Alternative Universe in Downers Grove--and how they are
marketed.

In making his ruling last week, Galasso determined that items sold at Sight
& Sound were drug paraphernalia marketed for illegal use. The judge imposed
an injunction barring the establishment from selling those items, most of
which are water pipes and other devices made for smoking.

It was the second such injunction against a DuPage business selling the
merchandise. The first occurred in mid-1997, when Alternative Universe was
hit with an injunction forbidding its owner from selling items considered
drug paraphernalia.

The cases differ from the prevailing approach to drug violations, in which
authorities pursue criminal charges. In the cases against Alternative
Universe and Sight & Sound, prosecutors filed civil complaints arguing the
businesses were a public nuisance and asking the judge to halt the sale of
alleged drug paraphernalia there.

"I thought we were being pretty lenient about the whole thing," said Joe
Ruggiero, supervisor of narcotics prosecutions in the DuPage County state's
attorney's office. "We could have found out about it and arrested them. I
think this is more than fair. We're just asking them to stop selling certain
items."

And it has been more effective than criminal prosecutions for selling drug
paraphernalia. Appellate courts have tended to scrutinize those felony
criminal convictions more closely and overturn them.

But Joe Sallemmi, owner of Sight & Sound, and Elizabeth Wiechern, owner of
Alternative Universe, say they are retailers providing goods for legal use
and that the county prosecutors are overstepping their authority.

"I don't understand why all of a sudden we're a public nuisance," said
Sallemmi, who opened Sight & Sound in 1976. "Water pipes have been around
since right after Christ."

Added Wiechern, who opened her store in 1993: "My rights are being violated
and your rights are being violated because they're telling you (that) you
can't smoke your tobacco out of a water pipe."

Sallemmi and Wiechern argue that they market the water pipes and related
merchandise for use with alternative, but legal, tobacco, such as that made
from herbs. That distinction, they contend, adheres to the Illinois Drug
Paraphernalia Act, which states the items must be "peculiar to and marketed
for" use with controlled substances to be considered illegal.

"It's like if I went out and bought a bottle of liquor, then went someplace
else and bought a glass and got drunk," said Sallemmi, who also sells
T-shirts and other clothing, incense, jewelry, posters, lighters and cigars
in the store. "They want to blame the guy who sold the glass. How can I
control my customers' uses?"

But Ruggiero said the comparison doesn't fit that neatly. He noted that
Sight & Sound, for example, displays T-shirts with marijuana plant symbols
and other shirts calling for the legalization of marijuana. The store also
sells a product designed to hide traces of marijuana in drug tests, he said.

And, Ruggiero noted, the store sells only "five tiny bags" of herbs and
alternative tobacco.

"If you look at the people going into these stores," he added, "it's kids,
and the legitimacy given to this stuff sends a terrible message to young
people at a very impressionable time in their lives. So, I think this is
very important."

Wiechern said the effort is misguided. She said that the water pipes help
filter out some THC, the mood-altering substance in marijuana, as well as
formaldehyde and other harmful substances in tobacco.

"It's like McCarthyism ignorance," she said of prosecutors. "It's
uninformed. They don't even know what they're fighting. They don't
understand the properties of these materials."

Wiechern might get a chance to explain her arguments in greater detail.
Authorities have filed a complaint alleging that she broke terms of the
injunction by continuing to sell pipes.

She says she will fight it.

"I was going to sell the store and move someplace else," she said. "And then
I decided that it's really not right that they're telling people what they
can smoke legally and how they can smoke it. I've made it this far and I'm
going to stick around and see where it goes."

Checked-by: Don Beck