Wild Rose Small Means Crack Pipe in Stores
On Sunday night I pored over an article about crack. Crack is an epidemic even in Northampton, the story said, and many local convenience stores profit from selling crack pipes, in some cases unknowingly.
I’ve been affected by crack myself. The jerk who broke into Cindy’s house was trying to get money to buy the stuff. His name is Peter Jeffs, and he will be sentenced soon, to a much lesser sentence than he deserves, since he broke into many other houses besides ours. If I talked to him I’m sure he’d blame this insidious drug, that he needed so bad he was willing to violate a stranger’s sanctity to take the stuff he could sell at a pawn shop.
I read Mike Kirby’s story on his blog and there was a photo of a tiny rose inside a four-inch glass tube. Combine this with a little piece of Chore Boy pot scrubber and you’ve got a portable, cheap crack pipe, the story said. The tubes are sold in gas stations and until just a few months ago, at Garden City Market in South Deerfield.
I walked over and asked them to stop selling the little crack pipes, that cost just 20 cents each. One of the owners Sam, said sure, he’d stop offering them, but until recently you could also get them at Cumberland Farms and in just about any gas station. Check the next time you get gas, you’ll see them up on a rack or hidden behind the counter.
Another article in the St. Petersburg Times said that when threatened with losing their liquor licenses, a bunch of Korean store0wners down in Florida stopped selling the roses in tubes. I did a search on the Internet for the two wholesalers who supply convenience stores–one is called Jacobs’ Paradise, and they used to carry the item that they called “Wild Rose Small.” Might as well just call it what it is–a crack pipe.
But now, a search for this product and its stock name 99-WR1 comes up empty. Perhaps they are getting heat and decided that this super profitable, yet controversial item, isn’t worth it.
February 25, 2009 @ 12:43 am
“Super profitable”? Doubt that, a $0.20 item is hardly worth the transaction. Can’t imagine why they bother selling them, unless it’s a draw to sell super-profitable cigarettes at the same time. Or whatever else crack users tend to buy.
February 25, 2009 @ 2:48 am
If you remember Max (but hey, you’re younger than me so maybe you don’t) McDonald’s 15 or 20 years ago had these little tiny white plastic spoons to stir coffee with sugar or whatever and cokeheads adopted them to snort coke. The company soon dropped the utensil (that also worked great to stir sugar or sweet-and-low into your coffee)History repeats itself. Or as Yogi would say “Ain’t nothin new under the sun”, or something like that.