SMOKE EM IF YOU GOT EM: State Supreme Court Strikes Down Philly’s Blunt Ban, Wiggers Rejoice

DAILY NEWS: A narrowly divided state Supreme Court has voided a 4-year-old city ordinance that was designed to curtail the use of cigars, cigarettes, rolling papers and other tobacco products as vehicles for marijuana and other illegal drugs, the court announced Thursday. The state’s high court ruled 4-3 that the ordinance, sponsored by Councilman Brian O’Neill, was inconsistent with state law regulating tobacco products and drug paraphernalia. The Pennsylvania law has a broad prohibition against the sale of any paraphernalia used to grow, harvest, package or use illegal drugs. But prosecutions are limited to situations in which the seller knows or “reasonably should know” that the buyer intends to use the paraphernalia illegally. The city ordinance – challenged by a group of tobacco distributors as soon as it was signed, and essentially never enforced – prohibited the sales of various tobacco products no matter what the seller knew about their intended use. MORE