Minnesota Reformer, "A Journal of the Free People of Minnesota" has the story, and a recent follow-up that the perp has the ACLU on her side.
Original link. Current story, ACLU involved. What motivates this deviant prosecutor - deviant from reasonable common sense and perspective? And elected, not appointed. People voted that way. Judge from excerpting of the original story:
Last year the Legislature decriminalized drug paraphernalia, even if it contains drug residue. The change represented a step back from the drug war tactics of previous decades, with an eye toward treating substance abuse as a public health problem, rather than a criminal justice concern.
But one obscure relic of the war on drug paraphernalia got overlooked, and was not included in the decriminalization bill: a provision in state law that treats bong water — the water at the bottom of a smoking device, used to cool and purify the intoxicating smoke — as a controlled substance, no different than the uncut version of whatever illicit drug the bong was used to smoke.
People don’t consume bong water, but some prosecutors still use it as evidence to charge drug defendants with more serious crimes than they otherwise would be eligible for.
Just ask Jessica Beske.
On May 8, the 43-year-old Fargo resident was pulled over for speeding on Highway 59 in Polk County, Minnesota, according to charging documents. Deputies smelled marijuana and searched the car, where they allege they found a bong, a glass jar containing a “crystal substance,” and some items of paraphernalia, including pipes.
The residue on the paraphernalia tested positive for methamphetamine, as did the water in the bong and the substance in the glass jar. Deputies further reported that the bong water weighed 8 ounces and, somewhat confusingly, that the crystal substance weighed 13.2 grams “in total with the packaging.”
Beske says the “packaging” is the glass jar, and that the reason deputies included the jar in the weight is that there wasn’t a measurable quantity of substance in it. She maintains she had no drugs on her, only paraphernalia containing residue. That’s precisely the sort of offense that lawmakers decriminalized in the 2023 bill.
But the Polk County prosecutor has instead charged her with first-degree felony possession, which carries a penalty of up to 30 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine.
It’s because of the bong water.
That post from this summer continues, but now, from the update:
The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota is providing legal representation to Jessica Beske, a Fargo woman facing decades in prison and a potential $1 million fine over bong water allegedly found in her possession in a case that has raised questions about uneven enforcement of the state’s drug laws.
“We’re pretty broadly interested in making sure Minnesotans aren’t criminalized for things like addiction,” said attorney Alicia Granse, who is working on the case. “Do we want to be spending so much of our resources on bong water?”
The ACLU’s involvement speaks to the unusual nature of the case itself, as well as its broader implications for criminal justice reform efforts in Minnesota.
Beske was pulled over in May in Polk County in the northwest part of the state. Upon searching her car, sheriff’s deputies reported they found drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine residue, as well as a glass bong containing 8 ounces of water.
Because of a longstanding loophole in state law, the county attorney’s office was able to treat the bong water as if it were 8 ounces of pure methamphetamine, warranting a first-degree drug charge carrying up to 30 years in prison.
The materials allegedly found in her car would not otherwise have resulted in any criminal charges thanks to a 2023 bill decriminalizing drug paraphernalia containing residue.
Bong water prosecutions are highly unusual, and Beske’s story garnered widespread media attention after the Reformer first reported on her case. The Office of Polk County Attorney has a reputation for zealous prosecution of drug cases. A 2014 Star Tribune story revealed it was one of a few in the state charging people for violating an archaic law requiring them to pay taxes on illicit drugs.
“They’re going hard up there,” Granse said. She questions whether charging people for bong water or marijuana tax stamp violations is actually contributing to public safety. “I don’t know if that’s what we really want to be spending our money on, or our time.”
Scott Buhler, the assistant county attorney working on the case, previously told the Reformer that his office “simply enforces the laws of the state as written.” In reality, prosecutors have a great deal of discretion to decide which offenders to charge and which violations to prosecute.
Granse said the case could end up being a lengthy one: “It sounds like this prosecutor is not willing to give up, but neither am I.”
Is this what the legislature intended? Is this worth public money to pursue? Is this prosecutor's office packed full of Draconian assholes? Multiple questions arise.
_________UPDATE________
In terminating the initial quote, the suggestion is the remainder is well worth reading. It is the publisher's story, not mine, so the quote was limited.
Noteworthy, this post stands juxtaposed to an earlier one, here. The bottom line, law enforcement can be good, bad or ugly. As to ugly, this additional quote from the original MinnReformer item:
Bong water was written into law following a 2009 state Supreme Court case, State vs. Peck, in which a divided court ruled that water in a pipe could be considered a “drug mixture” under the legal definition, and hence could count toward substance weights used to determine offense severity.
The justices relied, in part, on the testimony of a Minnesota State Patrol officer who claimed that drug users keep bong water “for future use… either drinking it or shooting it in the veins.”
Three of the court’s seven justices dissented. “Bong water is usually discarded when the smoker is finished with consumption of the smoke filtered through the bong water,” they wrote. “A person is not more dangerous, or likely to wreak more havoc, based on the amount of bong water that person possesses.”
The 2009 decision garnered national headlines and made the state the butt of countless jokes. The following year, legislators passed a bill exempting bong water quantities of less than 4 ounces from the legal definition of “mixture.” Despite unanimous support in the Senate and the votes of all but two House members, then-governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed it.
Ugly is as ugly does. Yellow highlighting above is used, for super-ugly decision making justification and/or action. Show me one fucking person injecting bong water and I might change my mind. Moods change. Some don't change with changing moods. Some will believe almost any absurdity. Some will testify to anything.