It's not just Tempe. Looking across the Valley, it's obvious that head shop owners know their market. Many have located within a mile or two of ASU West or one of the county's community colleges. Several new shops have sprouted in the Valley in the past few years — the trend is just more noticeable in Tempe because the city is so concentrated.
There's Sayegh's new shop near Gus's Pizza and the Devil House. Near Pita Jungle on Apache Boulevard, expensive bongs line the walls at a shop called Vishions. Similar products can be found at Hippie Gypsy, the Graffiti Shop, Trails, and the Headquarters. And that's just downtown Tempe. Farther south on Mill Avenue, you'll find a few more — Blaze and two smaller, less-fancy stores, the Coughing Canary and A&A Smoke Shop.
Tony Blei
Tony Blei
The Galaxy Cruiser
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The swamped marketplace has put a damper on the more expensive products at High Society in south Sunnyslope, which also offers custom blown-glass bongs, says owner Jim Meyer.
"In Tempe, near ASU, they've got daddy's money, so they like the high end," Meyer says.
Alex Sabino, manager of Coughing Canary, says the store stays in business by selling cigarettes, blunt wraps, and other small items, but he's surprised at the big demand for glass bongs.
"Every week, we sell a piece that's about $160 or so," he says.
Though Sabino doesn't allow the word "bong" uttered in his shop, anyone who walks in would know right away he's selling drug paraphernalia, thanks to all the posters and T-shirts displaying marijuana leaves. It's All Goodz sells pants that feature a special pocket for illicit stash. Vishions has a big neon "420" sign on its storefront window. Trails sells case after case of nitrous oxide and the equipment to inhale it. Blaze sells salvia for $45 a gram, a legal drug that reportedly produces a short, intense — and sometimes unpleasant — sensation when smoked.
The head shops' niche is their bad-boy image, and it's understandable why many folks — even some stoners — wouldn't be caught dead in such places.
But even the most strait-laced person would be impressed by some of the glass art in these stores. It's All Goodz looks something like an art gallery, with its most intricate pieces resting in prominent, freestanding glass cases. The thousand-dollar bongs may take months or years to sell, but meanwhile, the stores advertise the abilities of the artists, not to mention the store's focus on quality.
Karen Goldinov, owner of One With Glass Studio & Gallery in Scottsdale, says she waffles on the issue of marijuana's legality. However, sometimes she looks at the pictures artist send her of exquisitely made bongs and says, "Wow!"
"It takes a lot of artistic vision, a lot of talent to create that," she says. "It's not something that just anybody can sit down and do."
She confirms that many skilled glass artists make bongs, but they don't draw attention to those works in the larger glass art community for fear of losing credibility. She says they shouldn't worry about it, that the finest bongs or pipes should be featured in galleries or art shows.
That may yet happen. The demand for quality bongs is growing like the selectively bred, super-potent weed that users put in them.
If glass bongs became widely acceptable as art, marijuana culture would move further into the mainstream. Propagandists like the U.S. drug czar would holler before TV cameras.
Most people would yawn.
Either because they'd smoked too much pot that evening or because they consider marijuana a far more benign drug than alcohol. That is, they don't consider it a pressing problem.
