Quote from TM_Direct:
Did anyone read the article....in its entirety??????
HE PLEAD GUILTY!!!!!......
..you NEVER plead guilty LOL
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Very good point. And I have to wonder what his motivation for this plea was.
Tommy Chong may be a lot of things, but I don't believe he is stupid. Maybe crazy, but not that crazy. And certainly wealthy. So I have to believe that the only possible reason he could have for pleading guilty is that he wishes to take on a law he feels is unjust.
If this is his plan, a guilty plea would make sense. He could argue that he is guilty of doing something that the government says is unlawful, yet the law is itself unlawful (unconstitutional in this case since it is federal).
And since this is a federal charge, and he is a high profile figure with plenty of money, he stands in a rather strong position to bring this through the appeals process all the way (if necessary, but that is hard for me to imagine).
While the DEA and law enforcement and political zealots can argue their case 'til they are blue in the face, it seems rather obvious that criminalizing paraphernalia is just not possible.
In college, kids used to use empty toilet paper rolls to make hash pipes. Cardboard tubes from clothes hangars. Etc.
Also, when I was in college, there was a state law against paraphernalia that included rolling papers. (Hard to imagine with all the rednecks that rolled their own cigarettes in Florida). So it became a common practice to use Tampon wrapper paper. Now Tampons at that time also had a cardboard tube inside; also well adapted to use as a pipe. So you could have a whole paraphernalia kit by "scoring" Tampons. Good thing the Women's Liberation Movement was in full swing at the time.
Perhaps since there is a possibility that a toilet paper roll would be used to help ingest illegal substances, than the solution would be to criminalize the sale of toiler paper. And of course Tampons.
The whole concept of "paraphernalia" is so absurd that it probably should be addressed once and for all. And who better than Tommy Chong to be at the forefront?
Peace,
RS
