Fluid left in bongs and water pipes can no longer be part of the total weight of a controlled substance when authorities charge people with drug offenses, under a clause tucked into a judiciary and public safety bill that has been sent to Gov. Tim Walz to sign.
The governor is expected to sign the 192-page bill in the coming days.
In 2009, the Minnesota Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision ruled that bong water can be considered a controlled substance under state criminal law, finding that bong water was a substance and mixture “because it is a substance containing a controlled substance.”
The clause in the new bill awaiting the governor’s signature would reverse that decision and means prosecutors will have to separate the weight of the bong water from the actual substance being smoked.
“Water is heavy,” said Alicia Granse, an attorney with ACLU of Minnesota who in March testified before the Minnesota Senate Judiciary Committee to get the law changed. “Prosecutors were able to treat the water as pure drugs because it was in a bong.”
Granse said that would be similar to having a beer bottle with cigarette butts inside, then charging somebody based on the entire weight of the bottle but not taking into account the tobacco inside.
The law, if enacted, states that “a mixture does not include the fluid used in a water pipe or any amount of a controlled substance that is dissolved in the pipe’s fluid.”
That closes a “big loophole,” and is “good step for making sure what we criminalize in Minnesota is behavior we want to punish,” Granse said.
