Missing detail, bill author Carley Melin is a lawyer from Hibbing. Bill is HF 1818. Dibble is Senate bill author for the parallel proposal, SF 1641.
Are you ready for a big hoot? Backstrom, King of Dakota County [actually long time prosecutor there, not King], per MPR says, pot is the ever-evil "gateway drug."
Sure, and gay marriage will lead most certainly to bestiality and pedophilia.
No truth to it, but it sure is a hell of a scare tactic that goads the unthinking.
So, Backstrom, buddy - get a life.
Of interest to Anoka County citizen-voters: Hackbarth is co-sponsor of the House bill; with Petersen a co-sponsor in the Senate. With Melin and Dibble in the DFL, this shows a bipartisan will to reexamine the Drug War question - at least the medicinal merit dimension, (even if not presently wanting to author and sponsor a more comprehensive legalization bill as in Washington and Colorado, with taxation and regulation to drive out shoot-'em-up bad guys' profiteering, as undeniably exists under current Drug War policy).
It appears that Liberty Republicans are skeptics of the "War on Drugs," its effectiveness in general as well as via cost/benefit balancing - and most importantly, its fundamental imposition on lifestyle choice - it being a denial of liberty to individuals. There's an old song, "It Ain't Nobody's Business But My Own." Befitting victimless crime impositions, that song, ya betcha.
Back to friend Backstrom. One could argue his own Dakota County fiefdom is the gateway to serious drug traffic. And, you know, Hispanic surnames there too; hence really evil. Getting stuff "directly from Mexico," or at least that's a claim in the reporting.
And, oh my! Just look at the low-level miscreants wanting to reexamine Drug War shenanigans. With specious arguments such as:
The problem starts with the demand for drugs. As Milton Friedman put it forcibly over 20 years ago in the pages of this paper: "It is demand that must operate through repressed and illegal channels. Illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of the drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials."
[...] Other countries that have tried different approaches include Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal and Australia. What can we learn from these varied experiences, some more successful than others? What can we learn from our own experience in reducing sharply the smoking of cigarettes or in the handling of alcohol after the end of Prohibition?
There they go, quoting that flaming radical, Milton Friedman. How can that be credible? Everyone knows he's a Commie.
__________UPDATE__________
I don't know how readers might feel, but I'd prefer seeing Backstrom and his prosecutorial cohorts state-wide concentrating more on credit card theft and fraud, though pot busts are easier and the trials less messy, usually plea deals being cut, etc. I supported Brad Johnson's run for Anoka County Prosecutor when he ran advocating a stronger and more effective focus on white-collar crime.
But, hey, Backstrom likes picking low-hanging fruit, which is his perogative unless and until voted out of office. Huffing and puffing, to blow the straw house down.