Drug paraphernalia are articles that facilitate or enable the use of illicit drugs, such as hypodermic syringes for HEROIN or pipes for smoking MARIJUANA. Laws prohibiting the possession and use of paraphernalia have been adopted in every state of the United States despite significant constitutional objections to them.

The first drug-paraphernalia laws, prohibitions against possessing opium pipes, were enacted by western states in the late nineteenth century as part of broad statutory efforts to suppress opium smoking by CHINESE immigrants. During the first third of the twentieth century, some states, in conjunction with a legislative attempt to criminalize the nonmedical use of OPIATES and COCAINE, also prohibited the possession of hypodermic syringes without a medical prescription. By 1972, when the NATIONAL COMMISSION ON MARIJUANA AND DRUG ABUSE conducted a survey of state drug laws, about twenty states had adopted some type of drug-paraphernalia prohibition.

Commercialization...