PARAPHERNALIA CASE UNTENABLE

Back when I was in junior high, the favored pipe was a hollowed-out apple,
which some kids claimed gave the pot smoke a fruity taste. Also, it was
good to eat afterward (because, inevitably, you got hungry).

Does that mean the Drug Enforcement Administration should expand its new
interpretation of the law (Register-Guard, Feb. 25) to crack down on apple
growers and sellers? Virtually anything can be used to smoke with, and
there's no way to draw a clear line between paraphernalia that is
improvised and intentional, any more than you could claim that a glass bong
can't be used for something besides smoking - holding flowers, for instance.

The prosecutors must know their case is untenable and won't result in a
successful prosecution - it's more a message they're delivering. But in the
meantime, they've put a hundred people out of work in a town whose economy
is hardly robust. Creating jobs, as I recall, was a major plank in the
current administration's platform. I sell promotional signs to a number of
local businesses; I saw first-hand how the owners of Jerome Baker Design
ran a tight ship. They were a regular manufacturer with payroll and
insurance, shipping, receiving - the real thing. For an enforcement branch
of the government to arrogantly revise legal interpretation and announce
one day that what was previously acceptable is no longer, is as absurd as
declaring war on some country that isn't doing what we think it should.

Neal Conner

Eugene