Jimi DevineThe California Department of Taxes and Fee Administration (CDTFA) is partnering with the California Highway Patrol for an auction featuring property seized during the state’s expanding cannabis enforcement efforts, including bongs.
The auction will take place in Los Angeles on February 16 in the CHP parking lot at 777 W. Washington Blvd.
The CDTFA noted the items were seized as a result of serving search warrants meant to collect taxes owed by 10 different cannabis businesses. Nine of those businesses were operating illegally without a license; the last one was a licensed dispensary that fell behind on its tax bill. The CDTFA also noted this is the first time CDTFA is auctioning property seized during cannabis enforcement operations. 
The money raised will go directly toward the tax debts owed by the 10 businesses. Together, the group has a combined total tax debt of over $14.4 million.
“Seizing and auctioning property from cannabis businesses that evade the law is a tool to recover the taxes owed to the state,” said CDTFA Director Nick Maduros.
The CDTFA noted they have seized a total of $90 million in products and cash across 2,200 inspections statewide.
As for the auction, it doesn’t look like it will cover all the debts, but it might get a little weird! Four of the 10 lots that will be auctioned off featured some form of cannabis glassware. One has three bongs, another has three boxes of bongs, and one has two glass pipes and three more bongs.
The real question is what kind of glass pieces we’re talking about. Even with the dip in the glass market, the glass could be some of the most valuable things at an auction filled with TVs, refrigerators and numerous boxes of miscellaneous office supplies. While the glass market had dipped a lot, there are still plenty of five-figure works of art out there. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that this glass could have been seen as an investment. Then again they could be some random bongs off a coffee table. The mystery is half the fun.
We reached out to the nation’s oldest cannabis reform organization, NORML, to get its take on how wild it is to see states selling cannabis pipes and bongs to recover back taxes.
“I think it is a good indicator of how much laws and perceptions have changed in the intervening decades,” Morgan Fox, NORML political director, told L.A. Weekly. “It also may be another sign that the taxes and barriers to entry in the regulated market are far too high.”
Another crazy aspect of the forthcoming bong auction is the timing — it’s scheduled to happen eight days before the 20-year anniversary of Operation Pipe Dreams. Led by Attorney General Josh Ashcroft, the Department of Justice issued 35 indictments charging 55 people around the country with distributing drug paraphernalia. It was the worst day ever for the industry.
“With the advent of the Internet, the illegal drug paraphernalia industry has exploded,” Ashcroft said at the time. “The drug paraphernalia business is now accessible in anyone’s home with a computer and Internet access. And in homes across America, we know that children and young adults are the fastest-growing Internet users. Quite simply, the illegal drug paraphernalia industry has invaded the homes of families across the country without their knowledge. This illegal billion-dollar industry will no longer be ignored by law enforcement.”
Thanks to the CDTFA selling bongs now, statements like that couldn’t seem further in the past.
We reached out to one of the victims of Operation Pipe Dreams, Jason Harris of Jerome Baker Designs. We asked him how crazy it was to see a state doing what he got in trouble for all those years ago.
“It’s federally illegal,” Harris said, “The laws that arrested me have never changed.”
He argued the glass community needs to organize a lobby effort at the federal level.
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