EVERYTHING you need to smoke, snort or sell drugs is for sale in Surfers Paradise.

[Torsten]

Despite ban, bongs and sniffing kits in full view of families

Ben Dillaway

19Jun08

EVERYTHING you need to smoke, snort or sell drugs is for sale in Surfers Paradise.

Surprisingly, you do not need to go down a seedy alley to find them as they are available over the counter in shops in the glitter strip's main streets, and in full view of families and tourists

A Bulletin investigation yesterday uncovered items resembling bongs, 'pot pipes', kits designed for cutting and snorting cocaine, miniature scales used to weigh drugs and small snap-lock bags used for the sale and distribution of illegal substances.

In May last year, the State Government introduced harsh legislation banning such products.

"Under the legislation, retailers who sell, supply or display ice pipes, parts of ice pipes, bongs or bong parts will be liable for a $300 on-the-spot fine, or a maximum court fine of $10,500," Health Minister Stephen Robertson said at the time.

A 'liquid pourer', which The Bulletin purchased for $40 from Off Ya Tree, looks identical to a bong and has all the same parts.

The manufacturer's tag claims it is designed as an 'elegant dinner party pourer', perfect for 'salad dressing, vinegar, juice and much more'.

But when The Bulletin asked an employee if the spout doubled as a cone piece, the person replied: "You're on the right track. You crack the glue seal, then just turn it as such, (while demonstrating) then away you go."

Also for sale in the Cavill Avenue store was a variety of 'pot pipes' and small snap-lock seal bags that police say are used in the sale and distribution of drugs such as ecstasy, ice and cocaine.

Off Ya Tree defends the products on its website, saying they 'in no way encourage, support or endorse breaches of any laws, whether Australian or International, or weather (sic) those laws are fair or unjust'.

"There are many parts of the world where certain laws are oppressive or just plain inappropriate or wrong.

"Thendro Pty Ltd and Off Ya Tree does however encourage, support and endorse your rights as an individual to have an opinion and to do whatever is necessary to bring about change to bad laws for a better future."

Just the down the street from Off Ya Tree at the tobacconist, on the corner of Cavill and Orchid Avenue, a cocaine kit including a razor blade to cut the drug and a mirror to snort it off, and a small set of digital scales were on display in the shop's window front cabinet facing the busy street.

The Bulletin inquired about what such small scales could be used to weigh, with a employee replying, 'Something worth more than gold'.

Opposition Health spokesman and Surfers Paradise Liberal MP John-Paul Langbroek said it was a joke such items were still available.

"It's outrageous. They are thumbing their nose at the law," he said. "It frustrates Queensland residents because they see laws being broken but not enforced.

"It's typical of this Government that they are not providing enough police to be able to enforce the laws."

A Queensland Health spokeswoman said The Bulletin's findings would be investigated.

Off Ya Tree is no stranger to the law, having been raided last year with Queensland Health officers who seized more than $100,000 worth of drug-related tools.

While not illegal, Happy High Herbs in Orchid Avenue, sold a range of products claimed to have the same effects as speed, cocaine and MDMA (the main ingredient in ecstasy).

For $20 The Bulletin bought two 'X pills' which we were told would have effects similar to speed. "It'll really get you racing and your chest thumping," said a worker.

Happy High Herbs also sold 'party potions,' one said to give the user a similar high to cocaine and the other MDMA.

Attempts to obtain comments from shop managements and the manufacturers were unsuccessful.

Gold Coast Bulletin

[Torsten]

Did a bit of digging on the author of this amazing piece of investigative journalism and found a rather consistent theme. he likes to write about drugs, hoodlum skaters, noisy motorbikes and other similar issues. But why? Could it be that he is himself a bike rider with a liking for 'marginal activities'? He worked at Freerider magazine before and doesn't seem shy to promote his MX mates. I bet there is a good reason why he is so intimately familiar with 'off ya tree'.

check out these pieces by him:

On Nimbin Mardi Grass:

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/internat...bar-museum.html

On Noisy motorcycles:

http://www.mojomotorcycles.com.au/media/Go...0Feb%2026th.pdf

On 'chilling out with his mates':

"Ben Dillaway chills out with freeriding legend Ronnie Renner over a couple of beers"

Freerider #49, Image 6 of 8

http://www.freeridermx.com/index.php?optio...5&Itemid=85

More bikes:

http://www.tgb.com.tw/style/content/tgb/ne...p;name_id=42121

Even more bikes:

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/0...coast-news.html

Drug dealing rappers:

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/0...ast-events.html

And the ever trustworthy drug scare headline:

'Hillbilly heroin' hits Coast

Ben Dillaway

January 11, 2008 12:00am

A POWERFUL prescription drug dubbed 'hillbilly heroin' is spilling on to Gold Coast streets as addicts look for a cheap alternative to heroin.

Experts warn the drug, oxycodone, is so addictive it is usually only prescribed by doctors as a painkiller for the terminally ill.

But its popularity is growing as a cheap and more potent alternative to heroin, which is in short supply in Australia.

So if you like the quality and unbiased reporting you may want to congratulate him either at the Bulletin http://www.goldcoast.com.au or on his facebook http://www.facebook.com/people/Ben_Dillaway/633451048

One might also want to notice that the main antisocial problem at the Gold Coast is not drug, but rather alcohol. But Ben obviously doesn't mind promoting this drug.

[MindExpansion]

Hahahah what a fucking joke, is there any more to be said?

The issues with those laws dont have an end. Rather than kids using a glass bong, they will now be back to the old garden hose in a plastic bottle, gee that sounds like its far healthier, gotta love rubber and burnt plastic in your system.

His reporting on happy high herbs will be the first step to the illegalisation of the herbs that have not yet been banned because all the public who know nought about them will write in complaining that there is ecstacy being sold in the shop.

It is unfortunate that whoever was serving him that day at Off ya tree told him he could use the water pourer as a bong.

What the government doesnt seem to realise is that this stuff is going to be done anyway, it doesn't matter what laws they make. Banning low weight scales, which won't happen of course, would just lead to more OD's. This is just getting to the point of general oppression, and while, according to the government, there is no right to make free choices about drug use, they have to understand that it is a totally losing battle, and they are only driving people to use sketchier methods of consumption.

And wtf is a pot pipe, how is it any different to a tobacco pipe?

This guy looks like he needs a bit of a smack in the head, and he is just picking articles that will get the support of the 'anti-hooligan' public, who class just about everyone under 25, everyone who isn't middle to upper class, anyone who uses drugs (but of course not alcohol and tobacco, they aren't drugs) anyone who skates or rides a BMX, well hell, most people, as hooligans. Cheap journalism, writing to get an article published rather than to make an important point.

Oh and like Torsten said, one only needs to see those videos of saturday nights, let alone schoolies at surfers, to tell what the real problem is, but no dobut he government wont be banning schooner glasses any time soon.

Peace,

Mind

[Yeti101]

What are you talking about, Alcohol isn't the same as illegal drugs, Miranda Devine says so!

[AndyAmine.]

Its not surprising this guy writes for the bulletin, its the biggest load of garbage passed off for a newspaper in Australia.

It is filled with nothing but over the top, extremest, scare mongering tripe along with non-stop product placement and junk stories aimed at selling products, promoting businesses and political interests or whatever people have their hands in the newspapers pockets.

I had never seen anything like it until I moved to this area not to mention that your lucky to get more than 4 pages of 'news' on an average day.

Its like its written by grumpy 80yr old retirees and advertisers masked as journalists.

[PD.]

so its sorta like MX in melbs andy??? Thats if that pile of crap still exists

[MindExpansion]

I think we get MX in sydney...:S

[whiterasta]

It does my heart good to see we are not the only country with an insane bunch of cowpokes running the drug game. From burning saffrole in cambodia to chasing bongs at home , your makin' yer big brother the USA soooo proud seriously with the direction Canada is being steered also we will all be one big happy prison colony just like we all began all over again

Ya can't just kick back

while the world goes whack

artificially induced panic attack

phamaceutical answers in a blister pack

jack booted thugs give yer plants a hack

they lean on friends to stab your back

Is there all that danger inside a little sack?

We don't know but we'll make laws by the stack

And when were ALL in jail the guards will sell the crack

Isn't it the time to give the war some slack?

wasting tons of money instead of spending on what we lack

Our kids in schools in disrepair no lunches in the sack

corporate politicians everywhere and we are who they jack.

I will not be overrun, I will not recant I will stand in defiance of those with hearts of black

[MindExpansion]

Too true WhiteRasta. Go the global police patrol, the west will save the world, pity they can't save their own countries from poverty and homelessness, but they can take away sources of income from those overseas doing 'bad things', oh and they can stop the guy down the road from sitting at home in the evening and smoking a few bowls from a glassy to relax and watch a documentary, what a marvellous job they're doing! We should all be so thankful for their global policies and their policies here at home!

Peace,

Mind

Oh and Rasta, where did you get the rhyme from, its pretty cool man.

[whiterasta]

[quote name='MindExpansion' date='Jun 21 2008, 01:00 PM' post='178510'

Oh and Rasta, where did you get the rhyme from, its pretty cool man.

 

From the depths of my own illegal mind stuff. I grew up around "beat poets" in the sixties and some rubbed off

[2b]

Visit My Websitehttp://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/24/2284318.htm?section=justin

Two fined over selling bongs

By Jason Rawlins

Posted 48 minutes ago

Slideshow: Photo 1 of 2

Jayne Elizabeth Ford leaves Brisbane Magistrates Court with lawyer Kevin Kelso. (ABC: Jason Rawlins)

A Brisbane magistrate has put two company directors on good behaviour bonds and fined their business under laws introduced last year banning the sale of ice pipes and cannabis bongs.

The court heard a Surfers Paradise business trading as 'Off Ya Tree' was raided within days of last year's amendments to the Tobacco and Other Smoking Products Act.

Prosecutor Andrew Preston says Health Department officials seized hundreds of bong chambers, bong stems and cones.

Company directors 49-year-old Dimos Koutsoumidis and 50-year-old Jayne Elizabeth Ford both pleaded guilty to displaying bong components in the first prosecution of its type in Queensland.

They were placed on 12-month good behaviour bonds and their company fined $750.

Their lawyer Kevin Kelso told the Court it had taken authorities almost seven months to work out which of the seized items were illegal.

No convictions were recorded.

[MindExpansion]

Huh, fucking joke, back to choking on hose rubber! WOOOOO HEALTHY.

Peace, our government neads a right gutter stomping.

Mind

[2b]

Pretty crappy fine for a business ! ..............$750 and a 12 month bond......

I wonder if Ben Dillaway will write an article about winning his 'struggle', if not i hope every one gets the opurtunity to personally thanks him for his great work.