MN Lawmakers Seek To Close Paraphernalia Loophole

[SmokeyMacPot]

Two Republican state senators want to tighten Minnesota's laws against drug paraphernalia sales. At a Capitol news conference last Thursday, state Sens. Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, and Michael Jungbauer, R-East Bethel, said they want to identify in statute the kinds of pipes and other items they say are only used for illegal drugs.

Koch said the proposal closes a "loophole" in the law.

Currently, law enforcement can only arrest people who possess drug paraphernalia that contain drug residue or who sell drug paraphernalia to a minor. "It makes absolutely no sense to outlaw harmful drugs and yet allow the open sale of items that are clearly used for conducting illegal activity," Koch said.

"Allowing this type of paraphernalia to be sold sends the wrong message." Jungbauer said other states such as Wisconsin have similar law enforcement tools for cracking down on drug paraphernalia sales. He said the legislation won't affect pipes used for legal products such as tobacco. "It's for drugs and drug use," Jungbauer said of the items that are outlawed in the measure.

During the event, law enforcement officials displayed several types of drug paraphernalia on a table, including water bongs and marijuana pipes that look like cigarettes. "Having this legislation will enable us to act consistently with our efforts to curb and curtail illegal drug use.

It makes no sense to outlaw marijuana and not the pipes that it's smoked in," said Buffalo Police Chief Mitchell Weinzetl. Koch and Jungbauer are collaborating with the Minnesota Police Chief's Association, the Minnesota Sheriff's Association and the Wright County Attorney's Office on the proposed legislation.

The bill will delete existing language in statute relating to selling drug paraphernalia that Koch said is ambiguous. It will also provide a specific list of items that can't be sold. Koch said the final list of items isn't yet available. The Minnesota Legislature convenes March 1.

Source: St. Paul Legal Ledger (MN)
Author: Charley Shaw, Staff Writer
Published: January 17, 2006
Copyright: 2006 St. Paul Legal Ledger
Contact: pboulay@legal-ledger.com
Website: https://www.legal-ledger.com/

 

[aaronrockies]

It is a very different thing to be born and raised Jewish. Never condemn ignorance, nor the blind man for not seeing even what is right before his eyes. We are brainwashed, I have said it and I repeat it, we are taught to think along certain paths, to follow certain marked roads and not go outside the lines that have been carefully drawn, even when there is no obstruction but the lines themselves.

But for the rabbis and the priests even of the Visible Church, who lead men and women in error and do not themselves have sight, who glorify God in order to glorify themselves, who place themselves on a raised platform over you and me, they are the most to be opposed. For even if they are themselves blind, they are vain too, and pretend to see what they do not so that others will follow them into the thicket of darkness.

And here we stand on a mountainside, shouting down to the others, we are not above you in any way except that you do not climb up here to join us. But they do not hear our call, for they have been told not to listen to people like us, we are stupid, confused, crazy potheads, after all. In the kingdom of the blind, what do they call the one-eyed man who describes a rainbow?