BAN FLAVORED POT PAPER, PANEL ASKS

Chicago would ban the sale and distribution of flavored cigar wrappers used
to obscure the sight and smell of marijuana wrapped inside, under a
crackdown advanced Monday to keep pace with the latest trend in teenage
drug use.

"I'm seeing more and more young people smoking cigars. Now I realize it's
just a disguise," said Ald. Ray Suarez (31st).

Rolling paper that looks like the outside of a cigar and tastes and smells
like strawberry or cognac can't possibly have a legitimate purpose, said
Police Committee Chairman Isaac Carothers (29th).

"I don't know anyone who's ever bought one of these who only had tobacco in
there. . . . When people want to smoke a cigar, they buy a cigar,"
Carothers said.

Over the years, Chicago has blazed a trail in protecting children by
banning everything from grain alcohol and drug paraphernalia to bidi
cigarettes, the potent marijuana joint lookalikes conceived in India and
flavored in the United States.

Cigarette vending machines were banned from all public places except
taverns. Stiff fines were imposed against vendors who sell cigarettes to
minors and undercover stings were launched to catch them in the act.

On Monday, the Police Committee moved to cut off yet another vehicle used
to seduce teenagers into the world of drug use.

Co-sponsored by Carothers and Ald. Emma Mitts (29th), the ordinance states:
"No person shall sell, give away, barter, exchange or otherwise furnish to
any other person any cigarette wrapping paper or wrapping leaf that is, or
is held out to be, impregnanted or scented with, aged or dipped in
alcoholic liquor and/or honey."

Marketed most frequently under the "Royal Blunt" label, the flavored cigar
skin marks a disturbing trend in teenage drug use. It allows kids as young
as 13 and 14 to stand on street corners using marijuana under the guise of
cigar smoking, said Chicago Police Narcotics Investigator Raphael Mitchem.

"Twenty years ago, you'd smoke marijuana joints. Now, instead of the
joints, they're using the cigar wrappers because it holds more. Instead of
tasting tobacco, you're now getting a flavor," Mitchem said.

"You're seeing more and more of the little corner grocery stores selling
these. Teens are able to get a hold of 'em. And you're allowing teens to be
standing out there with their peers, under peer pressure, smoking marijuana
more openly and using this as a fashion statement."

The crackdown was the brainchild of Brad Cummings, associate editor of the
Austin Voice, the West Side newspaper that routinely publishes photographs
of neighborhood drug houses and gang members selling drugs on street corners.

Cummings said he approached Carothers and Mitts about the ban after 11- and
12-year-olds came into his office saying they had purchased the cigar
wrapper at a North Avenue candy store.

"The kids said, 'Isn't that interesting. They're making it so easy. You
don't have to hollow out the cigars anymore,' " Cummings said.

During Monday's Police Committee meeting, Cummings distributed copies of
the graphic instructions, entitled "How to Roll a Royal Blunt" now
available on the California company's Web site.