522
Opinion of the Court
basis for a subjective scienter requirement, the phrase "primarily intended or designed for use" in the definitional provision establishes objective standards for determining what constitutes drug paraphernalia.12
B
Neither our conclusion that Congress intended an objective construction of the "primarily intended" language in § 857(d), nor the fact that Congress did not include the word "knowingly" in the text of § 857, justifies the conclusion that Congress intended to dispense entirely with a scienter requirement. This Court stated in United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 438 U. S. 422, 438 (1978): "Certainly far more than the simple omission of the appropriate phrase from the statutory definition is necessary to justify dispensing with an intent requirement." Even statutes creating public welfare offenses generally require proof that the defendant had knowledge of sufficient facts to alert him to the probability of regulation of his potentially dangerous conduct. See Staples v. United States, post, at 607, and n. 3;
use of customers generally, not any particular customer, that can render a multiple-use item drug paraphernalia.
12 The legislative history of the Mail Order Drug Paraphernalia Control Act consists of one House subcommittee hearing. See Hearing on H. R. 1625 before the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 99th Cong., 2d Sess. (1986). We recognize that a colloquy with the principal House sponsor of the Act during this hearing lends some support to a subjective interpretation of the "primarily intended" language of § 857(d). When asked to whose intent this language referred, Rep. Levine initially stated: "The purpose of the language . . . is to identify as clearly as possible the intent of manufacturer and the seller to market a particular item as drug paraphernalia, subject to the interpretation of a trial court." Id., at 48. When pressed further, he stated: "[I]t would be the intent on the part of the defendant in a particular trial." Ibid. Given the language and structure of the statute, we are not persuaded that these comments of a single member at a subcommittee hearing are sufficient to show a desire on the part of Congress to locate a scienter requirement in the definitional provision of § 857.
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