Minnesota Supreme Court rules water in woman's bong counts as drug

[oh brother]

Rice County Attorney Paul Beaumaster will pursue a felony conviction??! I hope Rice County residents are taking note how their judicial officials are making use of your tax dollars. Repair roads? Fund schools? Make sure hospitals have proper funding? Nah! Let's throw someone in jail for 7 years for possessing stinky water. What could be more sound public policy? You don't have to be a drug user to ascertain that this in no way helps society.

[Von Mises]

Slim Pickens wrote:

Plus, you can buy bong water in stores now. look for the label that says "Green Tea."

LOL!

[Yet Another Steve]

Thirty years ago, when Texas was sending people to prison for 20 years for first-time possession of ONE marijuana SEED, the laws were finally, sensibly (for the time) rewritten to say that the marijuana must be a "smokeable" quantity -- i.e., one seed sure as hell didn't qualify. Unless the amount of meth in the bong water (bong water! bleccchhh!!) was somehow enough to get a person high, assuming that person was nuts enough to drink it or whatever, then it surely shouldn't count as a drug offense. Once again, political grandstanding trumps common sense.

(And no, we DON'T know if she was smoking the stuff "while the kids were around." Was that established in the story? No, it wasn't. Red herring.)

[HTP]

According to this article, "The law defines a mixture as 'a preparation, compound, mixture, or substance containing a controlled substance, regardless of purity.'"

According to a recent CNN article, 90% of our money contains traces of cocaine. A one dollar bill weighs one gram. 26 bills in your pocket is a felony.

Time to carry only credit cards.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/14/cocaine.... .

[Supreme T-Paw Court]

Judge Paul Anderson's dissent is spot on (read the whole thing, its worth it.) It is scary to think this is the "Supreme" version of justice in MN. Pawlenty's appointees were in the majority. What a shocker...

[Mr_ Anonymous]

For those of you that can read, and understand some legalese, here is the entire court opinion.

http://www.mncourts.gov/opinions/sc/current/O...

[Thomas C Gallagher]

Since drugs are now in river water (search:“drugs in water supply”) and cities get their water from rivers, city water is a “mixture” of illegal drugs, according to the absurd logic of this majority of four Minnesota Supreme Court judges. So – now that all of us living in Minnesota are criminals possessing “drug mixture” water in our homes and toilets – shall we wake up, end the abuse of government power, and repeal all laws criminalizing drugs possession?

For more discussion of this Minnesota case, and its well reasoned dissent, see my blog post:

Minnesota Court Waters Down Legal Definition of Illegal Drugs: Toilet Water Now Criminal to Possess
http://wp.me/pAFjr-2g

[Peter323]

The absurd decision had nothing to do with the fact that she was a mother using meth in a house with children in it. That was irrelevant to the decision. This absurd decision applies to everyone, not just idiotic mothers who use meth in front of their kids. Whatever the court decided in this case, the child protective agencies were and are still free to go after this woman. But the rest of us are now stuck with an idiotic decision that is another indication that the War on Drugs syndrome drives some prosecutors and judges crazy.

[Scientist]

BobGrins wrote:

Everyone deserves a good defense, but when we have to go to the state Supremem Court to argue over the "amount" or "mixture" of meth in bong water to determine how serious the crime is, the inmate are running the asylum again.

Because of the weight of the water (as opposed to the amount of the illegal drug)she will be put away for over SEVEN YEARS IN JAIL! Is that good policy? What would that cost?

[Mr_ Anonymous]

Scientist wrote:

<quoted text>
Because of the weight of the water (as opposed to the amount of the illegal drug)she will be put away for over SEVEN YEARS IN JAIL! Is that good policy? What would that cost?

She is NOT going away for seven years. That is what the guidlines call for, but I can gaurantee you the judge will depart and she will get probation with MAYBE a little jail time.

[she needs help]

Mr_ Anonymous wrote:

<quoted text>She is NOT going away for seven years. That is what the guidlines call for, but I can gaurantee you the judge will depart and she will get probation with MAYBE a little jail time.

Where she will undoubtedly get the help she needs to kick her drug habit and be a good mother, right? She doesn't need jail time. If the true intent of the law were followed, she would pay a fine. That's it. It wouldn't even go on her record. Meanwhile, the state now takes over the role of her children. I don't think she exactly qualifies for mother of the year, but are we this punitive toward mothers who drink? Do they get their doors kicked down with a warrant? No. I think most people would like to see rational policies that at least have some semblance of fairness and equal enforcement in society.

Bottom line: Two prosecutions, a Supreme Court ruling, child care, imprisonment, are all incredibly expensive. We haven't the money to go after someone for a personal amount of drugs. This policy of prohibition continues to drain resources we simply do not have. We needn't even get into the moral implications if it is right or wrong if we simply can't afford it.

[rightman444]

My guess is that this person had no intention of using the bong water and it was refuse to be dumped. Therefore, it should be counted as paraphernalia.

[Enough]

bummer

[I hope]

I sincerely hope EVERY SINGLE RAPE KIT has been processed by the BCA before they go to work on this type of nonsense. I saw a special on PBS that there is a backlog of literally 10's of thousands of rape kits waiting to be processed. There is REAL CRIME to attend to! Wall Street comes to mind as well.

Use our limited resources for things that bring actual justice!! The judge is absolutely correct in his dissent- people are losing all respect for law enforcement when they see things like this.

[Yep]

rightman444 wrote:

My guess is that this person had no intention of using the bong water and it was refuse to be dumped. Therefore, it should be counted as paraphernalia.

People put all kinds of things in bongs. Wine, juice, etc.(I have no idea why, I suppose for a different "flavor.") No one drinks it afterward. Yuck! The fact that the bong liquid weight takes her from a misdemeanor to a felony is absolutely outside the intent of the law. It cannot be sold on the street as a drug, so if no one is buying, how can it be an illegal substance? It you took a dump and sprinkled weed on it, no one would buy it either. But you can be certain law enforcement would weight it anyway to make an example of you.

[Mr_ Anonymous]

she needs help wrote:

<quoted text>
Where she will undoubtedly get the help she needs to kick her drug habit and be a good mother, right? She doesn't need jail time. If the true intent of the law were followed, she would pay a fine. That's it. It wouldn't even go on her record. Meanwhile, the state now takes over the role of her children. I don't think she exactly qualifies for mother of the year, but are we this punitive toward mothers who drink? Do they get their doors kicked down with a warrant? No. I think most people would like to see rational policies that at least have some semblance of fairness and equal enforcement in society.
Bottom line: Two prosecutions, a Supreme Court ruling, child care, imprisonment, are all incredibly expensive. We haven't the money to go after someone for a personal amount of drugs. This policy of prohibition continues to drain resources we simply do not have. We needn't even get into the moral implications if it is right or wrong if we simply can't afford it.

I never said she SHOULD get jail time. I said that she probably would. And I do agree that jail would do her no good. Matter-o-fact, for the most part, there is really nothing about jail or prison that rehabilitates people. Sure, there are some people that need to be kept away from society as they can't play well with others. The problem is they are put into a system that make matters worse. There are very few people that go into prison and come out better for it. It is a violent place. This makes no difference to those serving a true life sentence because they will never get out anyway. But, for the vast majority of the inmate poplulation they will get out...and they are really none the better for it. The entire system is FUBAR and nothing is being done about it.