The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that police can include the entire weight of bong water that tests positive for the presence of a drug when computing the amount of drug possession.
The case involved meth, but you can imagine that they’ll immediately start using it to jack up the amounts for pot possession as well. One cup of water weighs just over 8 ounces.
In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Paul Anderson said the majority’s decision “does not make sense, and borders on the absurd.” He said it isn’t consistent with what the Legislature intended when it wrote the state’s drug laws. And he blasted Rice County authorities for charging Peck with such a serious crime.
Obviously the prosecution in this case was absurd, and the ruling set a terrible precedent. However, it does raise a question in the law: Can drugs like cocaine/prescriptions actually be stored in a “usable” state in water? If so, possession with only the reduced risk of paraphernalia charges would be an obvious loophole in the possession laws.
(This has nothing do with the validity of drug laws. Imagine if the substance were explosives.)
Its just a law that can be use to arrest a person for anything. Gives them another way to ruin a person. Humm… makes me wonder. At what point will politicians try make a law that says if you have drugs in your system, you can be arrested. After all , we are mostly water and our bodies store trace amounts also.
Those who wish to control will seek to control,not matter what form that control takes.
yea with a sentance of 7 years and 2 months….. now its time for the waiting game… let this news get out and hear the backlash from people…. even those who dont do drugs know this is one of the stupidest rulings ever…. a narcotics officer testified and said that people save the bong water and drink it or inject it…. wow
No one intends to drink bongwater. Bongwater cannot therefore be considered a drug if no one will ever ingest it. A similar situation would be a real pot leaf imbedded in block of clear resin as a display piece.
Because of a ruling of the Minnesota Supreme Court, the situation has changed. Minnesotans now face the prospect of drinking their bongwater if the cops are breaking down their door.
In Minnesota, bongwater has gone from being mere disposable dirty water to being a THC-laced wax and tar cocktail. Chalk up another victory for the drug war.
When I was in high school I drank bong water on a dare. It did catch me a buzz, as well as make me laughing stock for a couple of weeks.
Anyway, throw out your bong water because bongs filter out THC, and actually deliver more smoke nasties per mg of THC than smoking from a pipe. See CaNORML’s website for details. Better yet quit smoking it entirely. Vaporizers and edibles are the only way to go IMO.
I wonder what will happen now? Will Ms. Peck’s lawyers appeal to the US Supreme Court? Will these monsters really separate Ms Peck’s children from their mother for more than seven years for Felony Possession Of Bong Water? The MN Supreme Court document on this ruling, though quiet long, is worth reading.
http://www.mncourts.gov/opinions/sc/current/OPA080579-1022.pdf
Something one learns in aviation ground school is a weight and balance saying: “A pint’s a pound, the world around.” So, it wouldn’t take too much bong water to raise the tally. Stupid as it is. Officer offers unsubstantiated comment about injecting bong water and the Justices, showing their total ignorance on the subject, pick it up and run with it. I see the legal profession isn’t protected from being “dumbed down.” Back in the day, when I used a bong, I used wine, not water. Everyone knew water was an “unsoluable.” However, vap’ing is truly the way to go today. Cops like to smell your fingers/hands. With vap’ing, there’s no residual smell for them to latch onto. Plus, vap’ing makes your stash last longer than smoking it.
Check out the comment I made on a thread here last week about the weight of an Olympic size swimming pool. I forget what thread it was in, but it is highly relevant to this.
Like all logical fallacies, reductio ad absurdum doesn’t apply to drug prohibition.
I suspect that some prohibitionists in positions of power hate people who use pot so much that they are looking for ways to push pot-users to the point where they will want to act violently in revenge, just so the prohibs can use the law to completely and utterly destroy them. Sadistic fascist pigs should not be in positions of power to begin with. I pray every day that they will all get their heads torn off or die some equally horrible deaths.
My Civil Rights/Disabilty/Discrimination case is now on file with the fed’s and Utah State Judicial Conduct Commission in Ogden, Utah.
It is a dirty filthy cover-up to a dirty filty cover-up of corruption amongst us all.
It involves purjury; four (4) judges’; five (5) attornie’s misconduct complaints.
It also includes GMAC fraudulently taking my house title while I was so sick and had not worked for fourteen years.
It also includes my doctor/lawyer documented breech of trust (not to mention my dear family going behind my back for years).
I was tortured and buried alive with trumped-up false charges to shut me up but I guess they are all dismal failures too.
I am now playing the waiting game for my personal justice regarding attempted murder and kidnapping charges.
Mark Shurtleff and the rest can read ’em and weep now.
Amen.
So if the bong water is dumped in the toilet, is the toilet water illegal? The Public Sewage are then traffickers? The Minnehahasota Court Jesters, impeachment sounds right. Man the place has bottomed out since Jesse left. Are bongs filled with holy water exempt? How about the air from the smoke, 14.7#/sqin times Mandatory minimums, making private prisons drool. If you dump a bong on the carpet does it become illicit? Holy shit batman, they’re flushing, the Great Lakes have become contraband! Don’t Let It Hit the Ground, ohhh the planet has been outlawed.
“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts
when you have forgotten your aim.”
— George Santayana, “The Life of Reason”
Ddc:
I was just about to ask the same thing. If the cops are busting down your front door and you dump the bong water on the carpet, is the carpet now illegal? Do they count how much the whole carpet weighs, or just cut out the wet spot? What happens if they wait too long to take the carpet into evidence and the bong water dries up?
In that case, is a smelly carpet illegal? How illegal? What if someone dumps their bong water into the city water supply? Can we weigh the lake and add that to the charges? Would the city be guilty of drug possession?
The law is a joke. I mean, the law in general (and especially drug law) has made itself into a joke, albeit a particularly dangerous and nasty one. As the layers of complications, unreadable and unknowable laws and absurd rulings pile on year after year, it becomes ever more difficult to take law seriously, other than to fear the people who use it to destroy others.
Someone once said all things obey the law of supply and demand, and the law is no exception. Things in high supply are low in value, and our supply of law seems to be limitless.
Retrieval of evidence may indeed rule the situation on the carpet dumping of bongwater, especially if the bongwater is spread out over a large enough area.
A first time marijuana possession arrest in Minnesota for less than 42.5 grams is a misdemeanor with no jail time and a $200 fine. If Minnesota is truly serious about upholding their supreme legal decision, and unless the weight of the cleaning fluid is counted, then getting busted for bongwater residue will become a cheap way for Minnesotans to get their carpets cleaned.
See my law blog post: “Minnesota Court Waters Down Legal Definition of Illegal Drugs: Toilet Water Now Criminal to Possess” at short-link: http://wp.me/pAFjr-2g
This is the Minnesota Bong Water case from last Thursday. A trace amount of meth mixed in water means the weight of the water determines the severity of the criminal charge (not the weight of the drugs). The court has slipped on the sliipery slope offered by the prosecutors. This exposes the law as untenable. Public opinion is against the court’s 4-3 decision. Dissenters have it right. Link to a .pdf of the court’s decision is at beginning of my blog article (short link above).
The case raises many issues. Here are four:
1. Intent. Despite a cop’s testimony that bong water is used by drug users, this is unusual at best. Bong water is normally waste. There was no evidence that the accused in this case (Peck) intended to “use” bong water as a drug. Also, drugs are in city water now in trace amnounts. Are we all criminals now (in Minnesota)?
2. Trace evidence.
3. Usable amount or form.
4. Proportionality. The weight based drug laws impose harsher penalties for bigger weights. Should a person with illegal drugs mixed in water be punished based upon the weight of the water, not the weight of the drugs?
Thomas
The entire Ganjawar is a Fraud…
LSD busts weigh the paper, binders fillers etc.
Ganja plants used to, and maybe still weigh the stalk, roots and clumps of dirt. Even wild ditchweed makes up 98% of eradications.
Crack is half Arm and Hammer baking soda.
Many brix have been soaked with water to increase weight.
Weight equals Time served equals Prison profit..
404 gag rules prevent medicinal defense.
Mandatory minimum sentencing, 3 strikes, prison rape,
deterrents to jury trials. 95% of “marijuana” cases plea bargain.
Plea bargain requires urine tests and rehabs.
More people in rehab proves its more potent pot.
Piss tastes and Rehabs are large growth potential industries.
Hemp is a threat to these products, presently made with fossil fools. Ganja is a threat to these products, presently selling Booze and Pharmaceuticals.