Enterprising Homeless Seize Opportunity on Senatorial Shortfall

 HOLLYWOOD, CA (Disassociated Press) June 29, 2006 – Ted Minton and Bob Salmons, two homeless individuals who survive by way of panhandling in the area between Hollywood and Ventura Boulevard in Studio City here, have once again come into the national business spotlight through an innovative twist on the outcome of the United State Senate’s Constitutional ban on flag burning initiative.   The proposal came up one vote short in the Senate earlier this week.

         “We’ve started making and selling marijuana cigarettes with rolling papers that are designed to look like the flag,” reported Minton.  “So far, sales have been hot.”

        In 1989, the United States Supreme Court ruled that flag burning was constitutionally protected free speech and free expression, over ruling statutes that had been passed prohibiting it.  Since then there have been a number of attempts to move a Constitutional Amendment forward that would prohibit it.

         Minton and Salmons were the subject of the national press two years ago, when they went to court to trademark common phrases used in their industry a la Donald Trump (see Homeless Following Trump's Lead, The Disassociated Press, March 28, 2004).

        “What we’re telling people is that, when they buy and smoke our reefer, they’re not getting high, they’re exercising their freedom of expression under the First Amendment.  As for ourselves, we’re not drug dealers – we’re expeditors of liberty.”

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