TOO CONVENIENT

Drug paraphernalia shouldn't be available

Sometimes, as we learned this week, convenience stores are too convenient,
for all the wrong reasons.

As a front-page story by Observer reporter Matt Leclercq showed Tuesday,
many local convenience stores carry items commonly used by addicts to ingest
their drugs. Crack users, for example, buy tiny roses in glass tubes, toss
out the roses and use the tubes as crack pipes. They also buy razor blades,
dime-sized filter screens and scouring sponges, all of which have a role in
drug sales and the crack smoker's rituals.

In some cases, it appears no accident that the convenience store stocks
these items. It's clear that at least some of the store clerks know exactly
what their customers have in mind when they buy them. Worse, some of the
stores actually display the items together, for the addicts' greater
convenience.

The practice is more than a little discouraging for police. Fayetteville
police Sgt. David Pait puts it this way: "It's very frustrating when you put
your life on the line every day and go out to try to make a dent in illegal
drugs, and you walk into any convenience store which seems to be promoting
items that are used for drugs." Especially frustrating because the items
have other legal uses and thus can't be banned by law. They only can be
considered drug paraphernalia if they are specifically marketed as such.

While there may be little that the police can do, the community can help
discourage or eliminate the practice. In Seattle, citizen groups have staged
boycotts and persuaded convenience store chains to stop selling drug-related
items, especially the tubed roses. Surveying convenience stores would be a
good project for local neighborhood-watch groups. If management is informed
of the likely drug-related uses of some store merchandise and refuses to
stop selling it, boycotts may be in order.

While it's difficult, nearly impossible, for a community to eliminate drug
abuse, it's certainly possible to act against businesses that are making it
easy for our kids to use drugs and encouraging criminal activities in our
neighborhoods.