Gas Pipe owners arrested on federal charges

[TexasTowelie]

DALLAS – After a two-year federal investigation, the owners of the Gas Pipe head shop chain were arrested Wednesday night facing federal charges for conspiring to sell synthetic marijuana.

Gerald "Jerry" Shults and his daughter, Amy Lynn Herrig, are charged with conspiring to sell synthetic marijuana, which is commonly known as K2, Spice or herbal incense.

Both Shults and Herrig deny the allegations.

On Wednesday night, the Gas Pipe store located in the 4400 block of Maple Avenue appeared to be doing business as usual.

Read more: http://www.kvue.com/story/news/state/2015/05/14/gas-pipe-owners-arrested-on-federal-charges/27315643/

Cross-posted in the Texas Group.

[In_The_Wind]

1. Synthetic marijuana should be illegal.

[eloydude]

2. Agreed. I've tried it, and tastes like crap.

Threw it out after the first "puff".

Rather stick to the real thing, which I'm vaping happily with my pen.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. I'm not sure why "synthetic marijuana" threads are appropriate for the cannabis group.

As others have noted, the stuff has jack shit to do with actual pot. Conflating the two is pretty counterproductive to legalization arguments, because unlike actual pot, this chemical bullshit is known to be dangerous.

[TexasTowelie]

4. I'm not trying to conflate actual marijuana with the so-called "synthetic marijuana"

I've never tried "synthetic MJ" and don't plan to do so. My personal slogan is "keep it real".

I posted the thread because many of us (myself included) in Texas and New Mexico have visited their shops to purchase our paraphernalia needs for cannabis from Gas Pipe. Considering that these arrests may impact whether the shops remain open might be of general interest to other members of this group.

If the forum hosts deem this discussion to be off-topic then they can either DUMail me and I will delete the OP or they can lock the OP. Does that seem like a reasonable solution to address your concerns?

[Warren DeMontague]

5. My pointing that out is not intended as criticism. Nothing personal.

The media crap about "synthetic marijuana" pisses me off, because someone has some emergency room visit or goes nuts and attacks people and the media talks about "high on synthetic marijuana". It would be like if someone was selling turpentine and calling it "synthetic iced tea" and all these people were drinking it, going blind and dying... the public hears it and says "fuck, that iced tea is bad shit!".

It's a completely bogus label, and I'm not convinced it's not part of a deliberate move to make actual marijuana sound more dangerous than it is.

[TexasTowelie]

6. Thanks for the clarification.

I agree that the media is mislabeling this garbage in order to produce negative sentiment to the real thing. Peace!