NO BONGS FOR SALE

Federal Crackdown Closes Head Shop Chain In Metroplex

Operations Pipe Dreams and Headhunter extinguished three Dallas area head
shops in late February.

These two nationwide Drug Enforcement Administration sting operations
resulted in mandatory closure of all three Metroplex locations of Puffer's
Paradise, which operated one site in Lewisville.

According to Rob Evans, the administration's public information officer, 50
people were arrested on charges of trafficking of drug paraphernalia
nationwide, including one in Dallas.

"We made our arrests; now it's up to the courts," Evans said, and declined
to comment about remaining or ongoing investigations.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft credited an explosion of the illegal
drug paraphernalia industry to the advent of the Internet in a press
release announcing the results of the two operations.

"This illegal billion-dollar industry will no longer be ignored by law
enforcement," Ashcroft said, and called the sting operations decisive steps
to dismantling the industry.

The offenders were arrested for being in violation of three sections of the
law and were charged with "conspiracy to sell and offering to sell various
types of drug paraphernalia."

Along with the arrests, millions of dollars worth of paraphernalia was seized.

This included metal, wooden, acrylic, glass, stone, plastic or ceramic
pipes with or without screens, permanent screens, hashish heads, or
punctured metal, water pipes, carburetion tubes and devices, smoking and
carburetion masks, roach clips, miniature spoons, chamber pipes, carburetor
pipes, electric pipes, air driven pipes, chillums, bongs, ice pipes or
chillers, wired cigarette papers and cocaine freebase kits.

DeGarmo said that any one of these items is illegal, and if they are
possessed or sold, the law is being broken.

"Anybody that is in violation of the statute would be subject to
investigation," she said, but added that although more investigations may
be occurring, legitimate and user-friendly retailers of tobacco pipes or
cigarette rolling papers were not a target.

Evans said the end result of the operations was the product of several
years of investigation by the administration.

"For years, we've been fighting the stem of drugs and drug trafficking," he
said.

A Denton smoke shop, the Zebra's Head, was unaffected by the
administration's operations, and declined to comment on the issue.