“Homemade Marijuana Pipe” from a press release photo in Gulfport, Florida. 1974
Gulfport- What do a wine bottle, a piece of construction pipe and some aluminum foil have in common? They can all be used to make marijuana pipes.
Detective Lt. Frank Hanson of Gulfport’s police department has a “collection” of such homemade pipes as well as pipes imported from other countries, which he has confiscated from drug users over the years.
Hanson said police found the first pipes for his “collection” when they searched a local hotel which had housed a group of young people Hanson called “hippies.” The hotell had been condemned, and when the occupants moved, they left some of their pipes behind.
Other pipes in his collection, he said, were found in cars and in houses during an investigation of house burglaries.
“Usually, these pipes are used in court cases, if we can make a case for possession of marijuana or possession of paraphernalia,” he said. “But ownership of these pipes is hard to pin down, especially where hippie communities are involved. You might have five or more persons living in the same house. And nobody wants to claim ownership of the pipe.”
Possession of drug paraphernalia is a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
