County Council bans individual cigar sales to deter pot use

The Prince George's County Council passed a bill this week that would ban the sale of individual cigars in an attempt to deter people from using the wrapping to roll marijuana blunts.

The legislation, which the council passed 8-1, would require businesses to sell cigars in packs of five or more. The measure is intended to discourage youth from smoking marijuana by making it more expensive to use cigar wrappings for other illicit purposes. The bill also would make cigars legally definable as drug paraphernalia in certain situations.

The measure is not without precedent, as Baltimore introduced similar legislation over the summer and anti-tobacco groups plan to push for a state law in January.

Councilman Eric Olson (D-District 3), who used to serve on the College Park City Council, was the only council member to vote against the bill. He said the bill didn't do enough to exempt more expensive cigars from the five-pack requirement.

"The intent of the bill was to deal with drug use, specifically the hollowing out of blunts and using them for smoking marijuana," Olson said. "It ended up capturing more than the types of cigars used for that."

Tobacco shops will be exempt from the ban because they typically offer higher-quality cigars that would be expensive to purchase in bulk. Other shops that sell expensive cigars, such as liquor stores, however, will still be required to sell them in packs of five or more. Olson said he would have voted for the bill if the more expensive cigars were excluded.

"A compelling case can be made to ban cigarellos, because they could hook young people on tobacco," Olson said. "It would have been easy to exempt higher-quality cigars."

Despite the bill's intention, Olson acknowledged that banning individual cigar sales would probably not stop marijuana use.

"The real problem is young people buy a cigar, hollow it out and use it as a drug delivery device." Olson said. "That being said, people will find a new way to smoke marijuana."

Irina Alexander, vice president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, called the legislation "absurd" and said the government should go about curbing marijuana use differently.

"The government needs to increase education," Alexander said. "They cut the number of cigarette users in half by educating the public about the risks."

Alexander said she thought the bill would not have the desired effect of cutting down on marijuana usage.

"It will only increase weed usage," Alexander said. "People will buy the pack of five, and have to use them all before they dry out."

Amanda Van Hoesen, treasurer and former president of the university's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, agreed the legislation would have little, if any, effect.

"It's kind of futile, since you can still buy five cigars at a time," Van Hoesen said. "It'll also encourage people to carry around fewer disposable things, making them more likely to get in trouble, especially for the targeted urban youth, many of whom are still in high school."

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