The stores that sell bongs, pipes, papers and other products related to the cannabis culture are becoming ubiquitous throughout American society. Even with some states and localities putting pressure on stores through various licensing provisions and revenue-percentage thresholds, these stores are fast becoming as common as check-cashing stores and fast-food chains. With the expansion of dispensaries (which can also sell bongs and pipes), head shops comprise an important segment of the economy.
Misstated Intentions
The tricky part about operating a head shop is that the government doesn’t want any such thing to exist. Purveyors of smoking materials must exist in a legal gray area much of the time. Some of them go out of their way to explain up front that they are offering tobacco-use products. If you don’t keep the conversation going in that vein, the proprietor may opt not to sell you anything. A dispensary that sells bongs and pipes would not have to conform to such patterns of restricted speech.
Not Just Paraphernalia
Head shops sell more than just smoking apparatus. They almost always keep an inventory of apparel, literature, music and novelties like those seen at most shopping malls. They also sell cleaning products for bongs and pipes, as well as concoctions that are meant to help hapless stoners pass their drug tests so they can keep their jobs. As time goes by, this niche will continue to expand and develop.
However one feels about all of this, one cannot deny that any job is a good job these days, and that small businesses remain the lifeblood of our economy. They must have an environment in which they can flourish if they are to assume their true role and purpose in helping to drive America’s financial future.