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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Legislature blazes toward pipe ban

Glass and water pipes could be smoked out of stores if the Florida legislature passes a bill prohibiting their sale.

If Florida House of Representatives House Bill 49 becomes law, it would outlaw the sale of various smoking instruments including glass pipes and long glass water pipes — also known as bongs — statewide.

So far, the bill passed through the Criminal Justice Subcommittee as well as the Business and Professional Regulation Subcommittee. The House’s Justice Appropriations Subcommittee also reviewed the bill Tuesday morning.

The bill’s Senate counterpart, Senate Bill 1140, has moved through the Criminal Justice Committee and, most recently, the Appropriations Subcommittee on Civil and Criminal Justice on Thursday morning.

Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg and sponsor of the House bill, said it’s common knowledge that pipes are used for drugs, not tobacco. He said he wants to make it difficult for drug users to buy the pipes.

“Some people criticize me because they say that this will not eradicate illegal drug usage,” he said. “My motives are to create one more impediment or obstacle to ingesting illegal drugs.”

Rouson said he was a drug addict while he attended UF’s Levin College of Law. In fact, he said, he was introduced to cocaine during exam time.

“When I got to Gainesville, the whole world opened up,” he said. “For me, [the bill is] both personal and professional.”

In 2010, Rouson sponsored a bill that allowed retailers to sell glass and water pipes under the condition that at least 75 percent of the store’s revenue comes from tobacco products. Since the bill’s passing, it has regulated the sale of glass pipes and bongs. HB 49 would change the regulation to a ban.

For local tobacco and gift shops, the new bill could hurt business.

Michael Aiello, an owner of Land B4 Time Smoke Shop Inc. in downtown Gainesville, said 65 to 70 percent of the shop’s products are glass and water pipes.

“It would hurt,” he said. “If it didn’t shut us down, we’d sure enough be struggling.”

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Another local tobacco and gift shop employee, who preferred to remain anonymous, said the shop she works in could survive by selling other products. Most of her customers come to buy tobacco pipes.

Local defense attorney Craig DeThomasis has represented numerous tobacco and gift shops when similar legislative changes have happened. DeThomasis said he believes Florida is regressing as a state because prohibition has been proven to be ineffective public policy. It increases unemployment, decreases the tax base and opens up a new black market, he said.

In his 30-year career as a defense attorney, DeThomasis said he’s seen attempts to declare certain items illegal, but the latest bill is the broadest piece of legislation to “shut down what is otherwise a legitimate retail business operation.”

Gainesville Rep. Keith Perry said he supports the bill, adding public policy should be based off what’s best for the general public, not off an individual’s livelihood.

For Rouson, the bill isn’t about unemployment or a reduced tax base. Instead, he said, it’s about shutting down an operation that facilitated his drug problem and preventing addictions in the future.

“It’s about life and death,” he said. “It’s about recovery. It’s about addictions.”

Contact Kathryn Varn at kvarn@alligator.org.

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