Ban Flavored Pot Paper, Panel Asks

 
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
by Fran Spielman

Chicago would ban the sale and distribution of flavored cigar wrappers used to obscure the sight and smell of marijuana wrapped inside, under a crackdown advanced Monday to keep pace with the latest trend in teenage drug use. II'm seeing more and more young people smoking cigars. Now I realize it's just a disguise," said Ald. Ray Suarez.
Rolling paper that looks like the outside of a cigar and tastes and smells like strawberry or cognac can't possibly have a legitimate purpose, said Police Committee Chairman Isaac Carothers. "I don't know anyone who's ever bought one of these who only had tobacco in there. . . . When people want to smoke a cigar, they buy a cigar," Carothers said.
 
Over the years, Chicago has blazed a trail in protecting children by banning everything from grain alcohol and drug paraphernalia to bidi cigarettes, the potent marijuana joint lookalikes conceived in India and flavored in the United States. Cigarette vending machines were banned from all public places except taverns. Stiff fines were imposed against vendors who sell cigarettes to minors and undercover stings were launched to catch them in the act.
 
On Monday, the Police Committee moved to cut off yet another vehicle used to seduce teenagers into the world of drug use.
Co-sponsored by Carothers and Ald. Emma Mitts, the ordinance states: "No person shall sell, give away, barter, exchange or otherwise furnish to any other person any cigarette wrapping paper or wrapping leaf that is, or is held out to be, impregnanted or scented with, aged or dipped in alcoholic liquor and/or honey."
 
Marketed most frequently under the "Royal Blunt" label, the flavored cigar skin marks a disturbing trend in teenage drug use. It allows kids as young as 13 and 14 to stand on street corners using marijuana under the guise of cigar smoking, said Chicago Police Narcotics Investigator Raphael Mitchem.
 
"Twenty years ago, you'd smoke marijuana joints. Now, instead of the joints, they're using the cigar wrappers because it holds more. Instead of tasting tobacco, you're now getting a flavor," Mitchem said.
"You're seeing more and more of the little corner grocery stores selling these. Teens are able to get a hold of 'em. And you're allowing teens to be standing out there with their peers, under peer pressure, smoking marijuana more openly and using this as a fashion statement."
 
The crackdown was the brainchild of Brad Cummings, associate editor of the Austin Voice, the West Side newspaper that routinely publishes photographs of neighborhood drug houses and gang members selling drugs on street corners.
Cummings said he approached Carothers and Mitts about the ban after 11- and 12-year-olds came into his office saying they had purchased the cigar wrapper at a North Avenue candy store. "The kids said, 'Isn't that interesting. They're making it so easy. You don't have to hollow out the cigars anymore,' " Cummings said.
 
During Monday's Police Committee meeting, Cummings distributed copies of the graphic instructions, entitled "How to Roll a Royal Blunt" now available on the California company's Web site.