Bong Banning Fascists Pigs, Man

Hard plastic fruit juice and sports drinks bottles will soon see a sharp rise in sales in South Australia. At the same time, garden hoses left temptingly overnight in front yards will, each weekend, become a few inches shorter.

From the Adelaide Advertiser :

The State Government last night passed tough new laws so anyone selling cannabis bongs or drug implements will face fines of up to $50,000 or two years in jail.

One local drug expert, pharmacology associate professor Rodney Irvine, said users will seek other ways to inhale smoke and that could be more dangerous.

"When you close one loophole another one emerges, a different pattern of use emerges," he said

"They'll make them out of anything, obviously."

Vegemite jars, Coke cans, motor oil containers, fruit juice bottles, apples...

"I would say that there's a possibility those alternative homemade ones will have some problems."

Of course, getting a tight seal on a homemade bong is always difficult, particularly if you're an inexperienced teenager putting one together down the side of the family house, in the dark, with a mate holding the flashlight.

Dr Irvine breaks through the anti-bong hatred with a claim you don't even hear falling from the lips of health professionals :

Dr Irvine said smoking through a bong or water pipe was probably slightly less dangerous than using joints or pipes.

"Intuitively, I would say that smoking anything through a water pipe is a better option than smoking it in a joint or a spliff," he said.

"If you're smoking tobacco through a water pipe you've got cooler smoke. If there's cooler smoke, there are less volatile substances, therefore less tar."

Unfortunately, Dr Irvine didn't get a chance to air his opinions regarding the smoke temperature of The Bucket as an alternative to the "spliff."

Many cannabis smokers said they would simply make their own pipes from household goods.

The South Australian Attorney General seems proud that his government has found the time to take hard action against one of the true evils of society.

"The Rann Labor Government has banned the bong,'' he said.

Until now, courts had to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, that the person in possession of the equipment intended to use it in connection with preparing or consuming an illegal drug.

A young man is caught by police with a bong in one hand, a lighter in the other, and some toxic smell hydro stuffed into the cone. The cop asks, "Are you about to smoke that illegal drug?" The young man answers, "Not now."

Now the bong has been banned, South Australia will be free of serial killers, incest families and body-in-a-barrelers.

The online comment forum that ran with this story is one of the most honest and funny debates about the reality of dope smoking in Australia you'll ever see, with lots of jokes about shortened garden hoses of course.