View from the cop: Crime & punishment
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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > April > 22
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
View from the cop: Crack is wack
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
My granddaughter celebrated her second birthday with a princess party. It wasn’t easy but I finally found a men’s size 44 princess costume and so off I went. Turns out the costumes were for the kids only—it was a bit awkward.
Anyway, on the way I stopped by the gas station / convenient store for about $50 worth of gas, about three-quarters of a tank or so. I walked in the store part of the gas station and literally could not find the cashier due to the clutter piled up on the checkout counter.
Apparently this store owner is big on the sales theory that if you pile everything up on the counter, it will have eye appeal since your eyes cannot see anything but the trinkets and other junk staring you in the face. If you are in the market for little NASCAR key chains, lighters with the Bud Girls on them, energy tablets, rolling papers, small energy bottles of who-knows-what, tiny elephant air fresheners, or other items of the personal enhancement category, then this is your flea market from heaven.
As I stood to pay for the gas on the gas pump didn’t want to take my card but had an insatiable curiosity about my zip code—over and over, I had the occasion to look at the little glass mirror display cabinet housing the tiny glass vase holding the cheap rubber and plastic flower. I noted to the clerk that the tiny glass vase looked suspiciously like a crack pipe. He smiled and said “Flower for your lady?”
“Do you smoke the flower or use it as a pipe cleaner between crack hits?”
He smiled and gave me that I-don’t-speak-English look although I just heard him talking on the phone with a thick Brooklyn accent.
“Seriously, it’s a crack pipe isn’t it?”
“No-No, it’s a small flower for your lovely lady.”
“If your lady is a crack head?”
“Ah Ha Ha—you make a joke!”
“Look the pipe—vase, has a hole on each end and a bubble down here on the bottom. See, you put the stem with the crack right here and then light it and then draw it to your mouth right here.”
“No-No—it’s a vase.”
“Okay, why won’t it stand up? It’s rounded off at the bottom and won’t stand up. What kind of vase won’t stand up?”
“Ah, ha ha—you make another joke.”
“Dude, your English was really good on the phone so I’m just asking, don’t you know this is a crack pipe?”
“It’s a vase.”
He had a look like he’s responded to this question a hundred times. He was on autopilot and as bad an actor as he was, he wasn’t going to say anything other than this crack pipe was a vase although he couldn’t look me in the eye.
I know that if or not these convenient stores sell crack pipes badly disguised as flower vases won’t have an impact on illegal drugs but it’s almost like they’re putting in your face. Put a sign on there saying “Crack Pipes” or maybe just don’t sell them.
Well, labeling crack pipes as crack pipes would make them illegal to sell so why not just get rid of them? How much money do they bring in? How do they monitor who buys them? Just get rid of them.
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