In its never ending effort to increase the size of government and continue the famously unsuccessful war on drugs, the Florida legislature is considering enacting a law that would make it a first degree misdemeanor to sell certain items commonly used to smoke marijuana. These would include certain pipes and bongs. A first degree misdemeanor is punishable by up to 12 months in jail in Florida. The law would also allow the government to revoke the license of someone convicted of selling such items.
As it stands now, most of these items are permitted to be sold by stores that derive at least 75% of its sales from tobacco and less than 25% of its sales from this paraphernalia. That is a dumb rule- either it is legal or illegal to sell these pipes and bongs and one look at the ridiculous war on drugs should tell any reasonable person the government has better things to do than waste time, money, effort and prison space on people using marijuana or selling marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia to people who do.
We will keep an eye on this bill to see if it passes and becomes one more law in the government’s war on drugs arsenal.