PIPES PROVOKE CONTROVERSY AT LANGARA

Vendor Asked By School To Stop Selling Item Which May Promote Illegal Drug
Use

A vendor operating in the main foyer for the United Way fundraiser had
to stop selling an item after the Langara administration said it might
be viewed as condoning illegal drug use.

The item in question was a carved ebony wood ornamental
pipe.

The pipes cost $8, but are no longer on display at the African Market
place table.

"The organizer spoke with the vendor in question, who identified that
these are `regular' pipes," wrote Jacqueline Maxwell, confidential
secretary to the president and college board, in an e-mail to The
Voice. "The vendor has been asked to remove the pipes from display
because they may be construed as promoting the use of illegal
substances."

However, Nick Virji, the vendor at the table Monday, said the pipes
were not for smoking marijuana.

"We are not promoting [these pipes] as paraphernalia," he said. "I'm
in the art business -- it's a piece of art."

He said the pipes are no different from items sold all over Vancouver,
and he doesn't know what people would use the pipes for.

"It's not my problem what they use it for," he said.

But several Langara students when shown a picture of the pipes in
question, identified them immediately.

"They're pipes for smoking weed I would think," said Sky Goodwin, 31,
a Langara arts and sciences student. "They're obviously not tobacco
pipes."

Goodwin said she doesn't have a problem with the pipes being sold on
campus because they're sold all over the city.

However, "if they were crack pipes I'd have a problem with it," she
said.

Sigi, the vendor at the African market place table yesterday, who
would not provide her last name, was asked by administration to stop
selling the pipes. She said the pipes were "all sold out" on Wednesday.

However, she said more would be brought in for sale today.