Jaime Lang, co-owner of Natural Mystic, says the number of smoke shops have multiplied so much in recent years because of the increase in imported glass products from places like China and India. Natural Mystic is a collective of glass blowers, so all of their products are made within 15 miles of Louisville. Lang opened the store with his brother and another partner about 13 years ago. Around 2008, he realized more foreign glass was flooding the market and bringing down prices.
“I don’t feel we have the same fight as some of these other places do,” Lang says. “You can walk around our store, I can tell you who made every piece.”
Ironically, Lang says the blame for the flood of cheap, imported smoking products falls in the lap of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2003, the D.E.A. executed Operation Pipe Dreams, which shut down several domestic pipe manufacturers who were selling their products on the Internet. The only person to serve time was comedian Tommy Chong, who operated a bong-manufacturing company in California. Chong agreed to a plea bargain in order to keep his wife and son from being prosecuted. Several other business owners had their assets taken and were put under house arrest. According to the documentary “Degenerate Art: The Art and Culture of Glass Pipes,” the remaining domestic glass makers went further underground and foreign glass stepped in to fill the demand as the number of smokers grew.
“I think it’s almost nationwide,” Lang says. “You can go through Tennessee and you can buy pipes in any corner gas station now. It’s the imports that have flooded the market. These major importers are buying boatloads and truckloads full and they are importing them over. So, you get a whole carton dropped off at your place. Some of them might be broken. People aren’t getting paid fairly ... They are getting paid cents on a piece. The quality is not there. Then the store charges 25 times what they are paying for them. If you are on vacation and you want a pipe, you don’t care where your money is going.”
While none of the smoke shop owners The Highlander talked to would admit that their businesses have benefited from mainstream acceptance of marijuana smoking, it likely has not hurt them.
An October Gallup Poll showed that 58 percent of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, and 38 percent admit to having used it. The number of users rises to 49 percent in the 30-49 age group. In addition, 20 states and the District of Columbia have already legalized marijuana for medical use, and two states – Colorado and Washington – have legalized it for recreational use.
The 2013 Kentucky Health Issues Poll found that 78 percent of the Bluegrass state supports legalizing marijuana for medicinal use and 40 percent for recreational use. In September, House Speaker Greg Stumbo said he was leaning toward supporting the use of medicinal marijuana.
With attitudes like these, it is not surprising that smoke shops have a growing customer base. Lieutenant J.T. Duncan, Commander of the Louisville Metro Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit, says he believes many of these stores are opening in anticipation of marijuana legalization.
“I really believe in a couple of months they think they are going to be able to sell dope right out of the storefront,” Duncan says. “My office is on Barret Avenue and sometimes I stop and talk to some of the people working at these places. I talked to one girl who was trying to tell me Jefferson County is going to legalize medical marijuana in a few months. I’m thinking to myself, ‘The stuff they are smoking must be pretty good.’ I think Kentucky will be the last state to legalize something like that. But I have been wrong about other things.”
Duncan says there is not much public support for investigating legitimate businesses that submit payroll tax, income tax and sales tax. LMPD gets about two to three complaints a week about smoke shops or convenience stores selling smoking products. The department has an officer assigned specifically to investigate these matters, but most of them end up in citations if there is any action at all. Unless an establishment is actually selling illegal drugs – such as bath salts or the synthetic marijuana known as Spice or K-2 – they are not violating the law. There have been arrests for selling synthetic marijuana in the area, but Duncan could not say how many. There are also several ongoing investigations. Later this year or next, LMPD plans to do a week-long sweep to make sure all the smoke shops are in compliance with the law. 
“Most of the pipes and the things sold there can’t actually be used for tobacco,” Duncan admits. “Maybe one out of a thousand of those pipes can be used for tobacco or some other legal herbal thing. We all know the majority of those things are being used for marijuana or hashish or spice, but until we actually find someone using them for that, it is not considered paraphernalia.
“We’re asking for more resources to regulate the smoke shops. The money that is there for heroin investigation isn’t there for Spice and marijuana. As a police department, we’re going to focus our resources on harder drugs like heroin, meth and cocaine.”
Several of the smoke shop owners reported having good relationships with LMPD. Wade says that some interaction with the police is the price of doing business, but that a smoke shop owner would have to be stupid to risk a profitable, legal enterprise by dealing with banned substances.
“If you are really in it for a fast buck, you’re in the wrong business anyway,” says Wade. “The only way to do that is to cut a lot of corners and do crazy things. Then if the man sees it, they might come see you. If he don’t see it, then maybe someone higher up might see you. If the Feds show up, you got a bigger problem than you can dream of.”
Contact the writer at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .