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The latest weapon in Chicago's war on drugs may be banning the little plastic bags some drugs come in. No, really. Alderman Robert Fioretti wants to restrict the sale of "self-sealing plastic bags under two inches in either height or width."
Apparently only one alderman on the Health Committee found anything remotely strange about this ban. "I just want to make sure that we don’t — how do you say it — bite off your head in spite of your nose," said Alderman Walter Burnett.
Lots of stuff comes in those little bags. Jewelry, if we recall correctly the elastic bands that go on braces, buttons, small crafts, bathsalt sample packs, just to name a few. The law would fine vendors who sell baggies when "one reasonably should know" that the bags are being used for drug-selling purposes.
This is a proud day for Chicago politics indeed. Because we all know there's nothing
like a difficult-to-enforce, bullshit law that relies on things people "reasonably should know" to keep drugs off the streets. [S-T]
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Yep, that should do it. War on drugs: Over.
Just like the ban on spray paint sales worked, too.
"bite off your head to spit your nose"...um, is he functionally retarded? Did he mean "cut off your nose to spite your face?" No, that doesn't fit here. I THINK he meant "throw the baby out with the bathwater". And Helllloooo...have you ever heard of the fucking INTERNET?
Won't someone please think of the poor children with braces? Where will they keep their rubber bands? And their drugs?
this will only compel me to buy bigger bags'o'crack
@Stephen: Exactly. Doesn't this make it harder to do a little bit of drugs? "Oh, no dime bags? Fuck it, gimme the kilo."
These bags are very easy to buy in Chicago. And you get A LOT of them for such a cheap price. And where I've found them no one's putting bath salt in them.
Tin foil works really good too. The city should ban that as well. Oh, and plastic wrap. And paper.
what is wrong with these people? where is thad/vise77 when i need him? the natives are all about the idea that chicago politics can be corrupt as it wants as long as 'it works,' but now clearly it doesn't even have common sense.
dear lord.
I'm reasonably sure that someone is dealing out of one of the houses on my block. I hope this ordinance passes, because it's sure to work better than the "Ignore it and it'll go away." policy the city (and the media) seems to have in place in my neighborhood. I gave up when I called the police to report an disturbance, and they didn't bother to show up until 45 minutes and two shooting victims later. I never did see a mention of it in the press either. If only we had banned the tiny bags two years ago, that all might've been avoided.
@Spav: a VERY quick search on the intarwebs brought up this site which sells 100 little baggies for the low, low price of $1.00. As you'd expect the bigger the baggie the more expensive they get.
All right, I ignored the whole "nanny state" crap when they started banning brillo pads, spray paint, fois gras, and smoking, but this?
Jesus, it's time to rein it the fuck in. Banning everything you think might be wrong just means it raises the annoyance level from "none" to "mild" as everyone crosses county or city lines to get whatever they want.
We need an Onion-style inforgraphic-- What are we packing our crack in now?
If they spent as much time enforcing the laws that already exist, they wouldn't need to spend money and time making up bullshit ones like this. And how about throwing money into schools and after school programs? You know something that might actually keep people from doing drugs in the first place.
And as a sidebar, that whole "one reasonably should know" concepts also exists for pharmacists who think their patients may be abusing drugs, but you don't see that go into effect that often.
I like to pack my foie gras in little baggies. Muahahahahahaha!
hey spav- have you ever seen walter burnett? or at least one of the park benches advertising his cable access show? the one's where he's trying to imitate master p or some other glorified pimp-like character? i can't suggest he's functionally retarded, but i can safely suggest he's not representing his ward's best interest on city council... he's a fool wouldn't suprise me one bit if he's caught one day selling rocks in those little baggies.
When I read the headline I thought, "Sweet, the City wants to enforce anti-littering laws."
Oh, what a dumbfuck I was.
Another truly idiotic move by our politicians. We should call them on it.
Fioretti's number is 312-263-9273.
You can buy those baggies anywhere, with designs on them... I mean theres headshops all over.. all down Clark near Belmont. Headshops full of water pipes for tobacco use and cmon who really smokes a swisher? Thats blunt paper foos! I think the baggies are probably the thing that will effect drug sales the least.
OK, so Ald. Burnett says this idea is stupid which seems to be the general consensus, and yet he is the one being lambasted and denigrated on this forum, do I detect a hint of racism here. Oh wait there's the wouldn't surprise me if the black man was selling crack comment, guess it's full on racism.
I don't have any problem with the way he is running his ward, despite the recent articles regarding zoning changes. I think the development has gone well in that area. In particular I enjoy playing softball at Seward Park which probably wouldn't be such a good idea if the area was not redeveloped.
As for the baggies I always wondered where you bought them I never looked for them but always assumed they weren't sold at you local Jewel or Target and that they were probably bought at flea markets. Anyone know if that's the case? Oh well in any case this is a dumb idea and it doesn't matter if a person doesn't say some stupid saying right, what matters is being right on the issue and most people do not have access to the internet direct to their brains so that they can properly quote or state some saying when they are being questioned during the course of a normal conversation if this was a written statement then that would be another story.
+1 to UTV... just because that's a Scottish flag for your icon, I can overlook the sheep-fucking to admit that was funny.
I just called his office, and apparently his receptionist or the person that answers his phones has no idea what I am talking about regarding this "baggie" thing. She said he will get back to me. Yeah, right.
Walter Burnett, the Yogi Berra of the City Council.
All of the shirts that I buy have them on the inside to hold the extra buttons.
I think we should ban shirts as well. And buttons.
Oh and while we're at it we should also ban seran wrap because you could also potentially hold drugs in there as well.
Is anyone concerned about all the "water pipe" stores on on Belmont and Clark? There are like 5 in a two block radius.
Sure they can ban those little plastic baggies, forcing the drug dealers to turn to aluminum foil instead, but then how the hell am I supposed to know what the fuck I'm buying?!
I meant 'I' strictly in a hypothetical sense there...
Isn't this environmentally irresponsible? I mean, if they ban the little baggies, won't the dealers just use regular size sandwich bags, which use much more plastic than necessary to hold a dime or a few rocks? I mean, I want my dealer to be green when I'm picking up my green. Maybe some crafters should start making tiny resuable canvas drug bags.
Spav, why should we be concerned?
Sapv - noone is concerned about the 5 water pipe stores on Belmont and Clark. They bring the suburban kids into the area who support local businesses.
I meant more like, "if they wanted to do aomething about drugs, those stores might be a more logical place to start"
I live above one of them, I have no issue. They certainly make the neighborhood more colorful.
Spav1 -
Any chance you could pick up some screens for my hypothetical 2-foot Graffix bong? I'll get them from you at the next 'game night'. Thanks...
Now now pinko - everybody knows that you don't have a Graffix bong. Hypothetically speaking it probably looks like this.
On preview: that is pretty sweet.
Pinko:
If I thought you would really come, yeah.
did this ban ever get passed?