Rolling papers: Drug paraphernalia or retail product?

By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette

March 31, 2006 -- My wife was in a snit this evening after stopping at the Five Star Food Mart on Chambers Boulevard in Bardstown.

While waiting in the checkout line she was admiring some of the goods for sale and noticed some colorful packs of an apple-scented product on the counter. Not sure what the packs contained, she asked the clerk what they were. The products on the counter my wife was admiring were packs of rolling papers, the clerk explained.

Rolling papers? For what? my wife asked.

The clerk was brutally honest: "Oh honey, those are the things the kids roll their joints in," she said without batting an eyelash.

"Joints?" my wife asked. "You mean marijuana?" The clerk nodded in affirmation. My wife asked the clerk why the store sold rolling papers if they knew they were used for illegal drug use.

"Honey, this is a retail store, we have it here to make money," she said. "At least our manager doesn't push the stuff as much as some other stores."

According to the clerk, the "stuff" they have sells quite well.

My wife wondered how stores can legally sell rolling papers -- knowing the true purpose for the product is for making marijuana cigarettes. There's a good argument to be made that the papers could be considered drug paraphernalia, much the same as bongs, roach clips and other drug-related items.

After a little research, I found that the difference seems to lie in the intended use of the product. Rolling papers have been sold for many, many years to cigarette smokers, and therefore, the product is still considered primarily a tobacco product.

It would be interesting to see the statistics on real uses of the rolling papers, tobacco vs. marijuana. Cigarettes are apparently the cheapest form of delivery for marijuana (and far less fattening than marijuana brownies), and it's a fairly safe bet many more papers are sold for pot than for traditional tobacco.

"We try to educate our kids about the dangers of drugs in programs at school like DARE," my wife said. "Then you take them into the store and they're selling rolling papers on the counter. What kind of message are we giving our kids? Do we really want our kids to not smoke pot?"

I pointed out that the same store is selling beer, another product that's targeted in the drug education programs. Both products are of course legal to sell and lawfully use.

The rolling paper industry is big business. Just Google the term "rolling paper" and you'll see that it's not a small market. While some percentage of sales are undoubtedly (somewhere) used for legitimate tobacco cigarettes, I suspect the larger usage is for the doobie-rolling good-old boys who simply want to get high with their buds.

Can kids under 18 buy rolling papers? I'm not sure if the tobacco age limit applies with the papers, but it probably does -- and rightfully should.

Some might consider my wife a zealot for questioning the sale of rolling papers, but I think it's a good point. Their sale should be restricted somehow, though realistically, underage sales will happen regardless.

Retailers who wish to sell the stuff could at least do us parents a favor and keep the rolling papers behind the counter and out of sight. Please spare us the need to explain to our children the contradictions even they can recognize, i.e., years of anti-drug education in schools vs. our local stores selling products that support illegal drug use (in the name or retail sales) while we wait in line to pay for our gasoline and gallon of milk.

Like Uncle Roy used to say, "Life's funny -- if you're lucky."