{"id":17132,"date":"2022-02-14T09:47:45","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T14:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=17132"},"modified":"2022-02-14T09:53:55","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T14:53:55","slug":"free-crack-pipes-time-to-pardon-tommy-chong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/14\/free-crack-pipes-time-to-pardon-tommy-chong\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Crack Pipes? Time to Pardon Tommy Chong"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>Libertarian Institute, February 14, 2022<\/h1>\n

Free Crack Pipes? Time to Pardon Tommy Chong<\/a><\/h1>\n

by Jim Bovard<\/a><\/span> | Feb 14, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Conservative publications<\/a> have accused the Biden administration of planning to distribute $30 million worth of free crack pipes<\/a> and other paraphernalia as part of its effort to achieve \u201cracial equity<\/a>\u201d among \u201cunderserved communities.\u201d The original notice for federal grants included provisions to pay for \u201csafe smoking kits\/supplies\u201d but the Biden administration insists that no federal funds will be specifically<\/a> used to purchase crack pipes. But taxpayers will get screwed anyway thanks to federal distribution of free condoms<\/a> under the same program.<\/p>\n

While \u201charm reduction\u201d is the stated goal of\u00a0 that federal program, the Biden administration continues to ignore the vast harms caused by federal drug prohibitions, despite record numbers of deaths from drug overdoses last year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest federal drug war farce should be a reminder of one of the biggest drug war publicity stunts of this century.<\/strong> On the eve of George W. Bush\u2019s invasion of Iraq, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the most decisive federal attack ever made on pipes and bowls often used for smoking marijuana, tobacco, and other substances. Ashcroft bewailed, \u201cThe illegal drug paraphernalia industry has invaded the homes of families across the country without their knowledge.\u201d Ashcroft did not offer any evidence that pipe sellers, unlike government agents, were planting evidence in people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n

Operation Pipe Dreams involved more than 1,200 federal agents conducting raids in Pennsylvania, Texas, Oregon, Iowa, California, and Idaho. Fifty-five people and 10 companies were indicted in the biggest attack on glass bowls in American history. The feds confiscated 124 tons of what was alleged to be drug paraphernalia, including plastic baggies that could potentially be used to package illicit drugs.<\/p>\n

Ashcroft\u2019s prosecutors used a rarely enforced 1980s laws that criminalized the sale of drug paraphernalia. Seizure fever permeated the bong attack. U.S. Deputy Marshal Dale Ortmann commented, \u201cThis was the biggest push in asset seizures that I\u2019ve seen in eight years.\u201d U.S. Deputy Marshal Gary Richards noted that, thanks to cash grabbed from businesses that were raided, \u201cWe have access to money that will pay for inventory and storage fees\u201d for the 124 tons of goodies. Apparently, this was the only \u201cboondoggle test\u201d that Justice Department masterminds applied to this case.<\/p>\n

The biggest catch of Operation Pipe Dreams was 64-year-old Tommy Chong, the older half of the legendary, Grammy Award-winning comic duo Cheech and Chong, who lampooned drug warriors from the 1960s to the 1980s. Their movie \u201cUp in Smoke\u201d was some of the best political-cultural humor of the 1970s. Chong\u2019s company, Chong Glass, sold ornate bongs that cost hundreds of dollars over the Internet; a Los Angeles art gallery had an exhibit of Chong\u2019s top-of-the-line products. The Drug Enforcement Administration set up a phony shop in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, and ordered bongs and other material from Chong Glass and then nailed Chong for shipping paraphernalia across state lines.<\/p>\n

The DEA hit Chong\u2019s Pacific Palisades, California, house at 5:30 a.m., while Chong and his wife were asleep. Chong later commented, \u201cIt was a full-on raid. Helicopters, them bangin\u2019 on the door. They come in with loaded automatic weapons, flak jackets, helmets, visors, about 20 agents. They bust in the house. They took all my cash, took out my computers, and they took all the glass bongs they could find.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chong\u2019s arrest sparked ridicule far and wide, including barbs from both David Letterman and Jay Leno. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/em> snipped, \u201cWith the nation on Orange Alert at the time, the only bearded men most Americans wanted to see in custody were members of al-Qaida.\u201d Though Chong controlled much less than 1 percent of the national bong market, busting him guaranteed the feds massive publicity.<\/p>\n

Chong continued doing his comedy routine pending his trial. When asked his views on Operation Pipe Dreams, he replied, \u201cI feel pretty sad, but it seems to be the only weapons of mass destruction they\u2019ve found this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

On September 11, 2003, the second anniversary of the infamous attacks, Chong was sentenced to nine months in federal prison, fined $20,000 for selling bongs and other drug paraphernalia, and forced to surrender $103,514 in cash to the feds. Chong\u2019s lawyer asked for probation, considering that this was Chong\u2019s first offense and that it was a nonviolent crime. U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan (a Bush appointee) urged a harsh sentence, in part because of Chong\u2019s history of \u201ctrivializing law enforcement\u201d with his humor. If Operation Pipe Dreams did not deserve to be trivialized, then the United States is a theocracy, with worship of government the official religion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chong was also forced to promise the judge that he would not profit from his arrest and prosecution. This effectively destroyed Chong\u2019s freedom of speech to discuss his case in future comedy performances. At least in Chong\u2019s case, mocking the feds would be a federal offense.<\/p>\n

Even though Chong was not the biggest player in the paraphernalia game, he received a harsher sentence than any of the other people who had been convicted in Operational Pipe Dreams at the time of his trial. Chong\u2019s partner, Cheech Marin, derided the prosecutors: \u201cThese are the same kinds of simpletons we were fighting when we made \u201cUp in Smoke,\u201d in terms of a repressive administration.\u00a0 That Tommy\u00a0 Chong\u00a0 is going to prison for this is a total miscarriage of\u00a0 justice. The administration should hang its head in shame.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 2005 interview with the Los Angeles Weekly,<\/em> Chong observed, \u201cThe American justice system is just riddled with lies and inconsistencies.\u201d He explained his prosecution: \u201cThey just wanted to show the entertainment world that we\u2019re vulnerable. \u2018You do something that we don\u2019t like, you\u2019re going to end up in jail.\u2019 That\u2019s the message they put out.\u201d Chong was philosophical about his imprisonment: \u201cI call this the Tsunami Government. This government is just like the tsunami. It\u2019s coming in, it\u2019s going to wreak havoc and desolation, and then it\u2019ll go out. It\u2019ll disappear. So we just have to live through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The principle behind Operation Pipe Dreams was that federal agents have the right to destroy the lives of anyone who does something that politicians disapprove. This is the same toxic principle that has been used to arrest more than ten million of nonviolent marijuana smokers since the Reagan era.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regardless of what sort of \u201charm reduction\u201d handouts the Biden administration distributes, the least Biden can do is pardon Chong (who served his prison sentence long ago) and any other nonviolent offender whose record is stained by a convict for distributing paraphernalia. It would be far better for Biden to call an end to the disastrous federal drug war. But we are unlikely to see such courage or wisdom from a man who, during his decades in the Senate, was renowned for championing punitive crime bills to impose his favorite cure: \u201cLock the S.O.B.s up<\/a>!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Libertarian Institute, February 14, 2022 Free Crack Pipes? Time to Pardon Tommy Chong by Jim Bovard | Feb 14, 2022 Conservative publications have accused the Biden administration of planning to distribute $30 million worth of free crack pipes and other paraphernalia as part of its effort to achieve \u201cracial equity\u201d among \u201cunderserved communities.\u201d The original […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2124,3176,113,3178,36,1262,3177,3175,3179],"class_list":["post-17132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biden","tag-crack-pipe","tag-drug-war","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-iraq","tag-john-ashcroft","tag-operation-pipe-dreams","tag-paraphernalia","tag-racial-equity"],"yoast_head":"\nFree Crack Pipes? 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17137,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17132\/revisions\/17137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}