MISPLACED AGGRESSION

Ashcroft Wasting Time and Money On Trivial Issues

Apparently frustrated with the miserable failure of the war on drugs,
Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator
John B. Brown turned their ill-informed aggression toward legitimate
businesses in a nationally televised address on CNN last week. Citing
ambiguous federal law, Ashcroft, Brown and others announced the indictment
of more than 50 sellers of tobacco pipes, or as Ashcroft might say, illegal
drug paraphernalia distributors.

What should enrage freedom-loving Americans is not the crackdown on drug
paraphernalia, but how broadly "paraphernalia" is being defined.

According to www.DEA.gov, the government cites Title 21 U.S. Code Service
Section 863, a 1996 law concerning what constitutes paraphernalia. Among
the many vague stipulations considered about a product under this law are
"circumstantial evidence of the ratio of sales of the items to the total
sales of the business, the existence and scope of legitimate uses in the
community and expert testimony concerning its use, ... (and any) other
logically relevant factors." Well, that clarifies everything.

The fact that the federal government itself is determining the "existence
and scope of legitimate uses" of these products and what factors are
considered "logically relevant" is disheartening, as no government agency
could ever make these decisions objectively, assuming the agency even
understood the obscure jargon of this law. This is the type of stupidity of
thought that tax-paying citizens should hold their representatives
accountable for.

Equally disappointing is that the two nationwide crackdowns, which the DEA
smugly refer to as Operations Pipe Dream and Headhunter, come as this
nation is going up and down the colors of the terror alert ladder and
preparing for a possible war with Iraq. Given the tense nature of the
current climate, not only is an attack on alleged marijuana pipes and their
distributors by the federal government laughable, it is downright
embarrassing. Though exact figures were never revealed by Ashcroft, the
fact that these are U.S. tax dollars at work is clearly a shame.

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Director Keith
Stroup rightly identified Ashcroft as a man with a personal agenda possibly
vying for future political advancement. Just like Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
used video game violence to propel himself up the political ladder,
Ashcroft is taking on pipes.

According to news.com, Stroup said, "This latest enforcement is primarily
an expression of extremism of this particular attorney general.

President Bush and most of his serious advisers have more (important) work
to focus on right now than whether someone's selling rolling papers and
roach clips." Ashcroft probably has more important work to focus on, too.

But when incarcerating actual drug dealers presents too much of a
challenge, the easy-to-catch, law-abiding businessman is targeted.

Just because marijuana can be put into a pipe should not make pipes illegal
and their dealers criminal; such an assertion is comical.

Pipes and bongs can be made from simple household items as well, such as
two-liter bottles, soda cans and tinfoil. These items, too, must apparently
be confiscated and destroyed by the government, as they can be broadly
defined as drug paraphernalia. Really, anything can.

According to this line of thought, guns should be illegal because they can
be used as instruments of crime when loaded with bullets.

One must totally disregard the fact that they have practical, legal uses.
And as ridiculous as all this sounds, it is exactly what this nation's
government is implying.

In reality, a pipe in its own right hurts no one. Drug abuse may very well
be a problem in this country, but destroying pipes with legal uses will do
nothing to curb that problem.

The issue does bring to light another, much bigger, problem: governmental
irresponsibility. Unless U.S. citizens hold agencies such as the DEA and
individuals such as Attorney General Ashcroft accountable, they will
continue to persecute and prosecute innocent Americans, defining federal
law as they see fit.