Prosecutors Will Not File Criminal Charges Because the Hutchinson Officer Made the Disclosure With Immunity From Prosecution.

A Hutchinson police officer admitted to superiors last fall that he gave people marijuana as part of a state training exercise in Minneapolis, a month after prosecutors declared they lacked sufficient evidence to charge him.

The officer, Karl Willers, also told his department that between 30 and 40 percent of his training class distributed narcotics in order to perform observations, and that a coordinator of the program told them to get rid of the drugs after the allegations went public, according to a Hutchinson investigative report obtained through an open records request.

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As one who spent more than 20 years in law enforcement fighting the "drug war," I can attest to its absurd, futile and tragic nature. Tragic, in that many wonderful youngsters are irrevocably harmed by our reactionary punishment of recreational marijuana use. We'll never know how many people missed out on well-deserved careers, fell into severe depression or harmed themselves because of the impact of a minor infraction of experimenting with an innocuous drug. Further, as noted in the commentary, prescription drugs kill far more people than do cocaine and heroin combined.

THOMAS EVANS, Bemidji, Minn.

[end]

(In which we ponder the nanny state and harm done.)

Minnesota legislators seem poised to follow the lead of 18 other states by legalizing medicinal marijuana in the next legislative session. While the effort is primarily a Democratic one, there is Republican support as well. Nevertheless, lawmakers are up against the same obstacle medical marijuana faced in 2009 - a reluctant governor. Mark Dayton remains adamant, as was Tim Pawlenty before him, about deferring to a powerful state interest whose support most politicians covet: law enforcement. Indeed, the governor's spokesperson declared in the waning days of the 2013 session that Dayton won't support any legislation on the issue so long as groups like the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association oppose it.

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Medical marijuana was not among the alternative pain relief methods mentioned in the last Sunday's article ("For those in pain, changes fuel fears," June 23). Why hasn't this gotten off the ground in Minnesota? It does what it's supposed to do - relieve pain - with much fewer adverse effects than oxycodone or other narcotics. It should be considered alongside other nonpharmacological interventions, because it works. Minnesota needs to catch up with the several states giving compassionate options to the chronically ill.

Northfield, Minn.

[end]

Deaths and hospital admissions linked to meth are climbing.

With heroin and other opiate use remaining at what experts call alarmingly high levels, there's new cause for concern: Methamphetamine is back.

The resurgence of the dangerous, addictive meth is described in a new report on drug trends in the Twin Cities by Carol Falkowksi, a private consultant and former drug abuse strategy czar for Minnesota.

Meth overdose deaths rose from 10 to 21 from 2011 to 2012 in Ramsey and Hennepin counties alone, there are more emergency-room admissions and the number of meth labs is beginning to creep up again after state and federal efforts to shutter them a half-dozen years ago, she said.

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An increasingly available option for medical patients suffering chronic pain -- medical marijuana -- should be avoided by teens, Mayo Clinic researchers say in an upcoming publication.

A commentary, to be published in the July issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings, relies on findings from cases involving three high school-age patients at Mayo's pediatric chronic pain clinic, who said they used marijuana regularly.

Despite their use, the teens' pain worsened. They reported impaired function and had difficulty becoming more socially active, according to a summary of the report.

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Why would Gov. Mark Dayton listen to the police over the medical community when considering the value of medical marijuana? ("Medical marijuana supporters push for legalization," May 3.) A front-page story the same day noted that suicide deaths have risen sharply among baby boomers because we have such easy access to prescription pain killers, drugs that are easy to take in a large enough amount to kill us. Are we outlawing them because they kill people? Heck, no, even though they are widely abused by all age groups, including young people.

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It Won't Happen This Session, but Bipartisan Effort Looks to the Next.

Legislators are disagreeing on a lot of big issues, but they found a bit of common ground Thursday - medical marijuana.

It's too late to push a bill through this session, but about 40 legislators in both parties, including more than a dozen committee chairmen, sent a strong signal that they want to add Minnesota to the 18 states where marijuana can be legally prescribed.

Legislators passed the legalization of medical marijuana in 2009, but were stopped by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who vetoed the bill.

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This does not mean giving the thumbs-up to drug use. There can be no doubt that recreational drug use can ruin lives.

However, a felony conviction can be even more devastating. Does anyone think jailing a father who responsibly uses marijuana does him, his economic prospects, or his family any good? The president of the United States is a former recreational marijuana user, even publicly thanking his pot-smoking buddies in his high school yearbook.

Does anyone think that the course of Barack Obama's life would have been improved by an arrest when he was young?

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Kersten criticizes lawyers for considering the complexities. But why shouldn't they?

Katherine Kersten did her own dance around the truth in "Of race, crime statistics and victimhood" (April 7). In her rush to expose a liberal-lawyer conspiracy, she did exactly what she accuses others of doing. She approached a highly complex issue with simplistic jargon such as "the new victim class," failed to recognize the irrefutability of some of the facts and glossed over an issue that has profound implications for all of us and how we live together.

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The Twin Cities Legal Community Is Dancing Around the Truth

Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up.

The latest cause celebre for prominent lawyers and judges in Minneapolis is the rights of a new, disenfranchised class of victims who, we're told, can't vote, serve on juries, or - in some cases - live in public housing.

Who's this new victim class? Murderers, robbers, rapists, and dealers and users of illegal drugs - in short, convicted felons.

People incarcerated for felonies are disproportionately black, the argument goes, so laws that deprive felons of certain civil rights that law-abiding citizens enjoy are the racist equivalent of poll taxes in the Jim Crow South.

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A Dec. 31 article ("Drugs and thugs slide down priority scale") reported that criminal prosecutions for drug crimes have dropped significantly at the U.S. Attorney's office in Minneapolis under the leadership of B. Todd Jones. There are those, apparently, who are concerned about this, and to them and others, I would suggest a book: Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow."

Alexander argues convincingly that the new Jim Crow is the mass incarceration of black and Latino men convicted of drug crimes. She suggests that the war on drugs initiated during the Reagan administration unfairly and disproportionately targets these men. She supports her conclusions with significant data. A few examples: 1) the large increase in the prison populations in the last 20 years is primarily due to drug arrests; 2) the overwhelming percentage of arrests are for possession, with few of the dealers being charged, and 3) the vast majority of drug users are white, but the vast majority of those in prison are black or Latino.

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U.S. Attorney Says Office Is Focused On Bigger, More Time-Consuming Crimes.

Criminal prosecutions have dropped dramatically at the U.S. Attorney's office in Minneapolis under the leadership of B. Todd Jones, rankling some in law enforcement.

A Star Tribune analysis of federal prosecutions in Minnesota in the past six fiscal years shows that significantly fewer people are being charged -- especially those involved in drug crimes.

Drug suspects made up 60 percent of the defendants charged under former U.S. Attorneys Thomas Heffelfinger and Rachel Paulose in 2006. Under Jones they account for just 36 percent, and illustrate a major shift in the office's priorities.

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Voters Passed a Measure Legalizing Marijuana for Recreational Use.

The election is over. The advertisements, the phone calls, the canvassers, the pundits, the mailers and the social media posts have stopped. For all the efforts nationally, it appears that the status quo remains intact: Democrats in the White House and the Senate will oppose a Republican Congress. Will anything change from the last two years? Only time will tell. However, at the state level, ballot measures had a field day. Obviously, Minnesota voted "no" on an amendment to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. Washington, Maryland and Maine outright legalized gay marriage via ballot measures. Montana and Massachusetts passed medical marijuana reform initiatives. And Colorado and Washington legalized personal use of marijuana outright for those 21 and over.

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Just more than a year ago synthetic marijuana was sold over the counter in Rochester at adult bookstores and some gas stations. Outright sales of the drug, however, largely fell off a year ago when selling it became a misdemeanor, said Jim Martinson, chief deputy county attorney for Olmsted County.

So, on Wednesday, when a new state law goes into effect making it a felony to sell the designer drugs meant to mimic marijuana and other controlled substances, there shouldn't be a spike in court cases here, he said.

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MANKATO - A Mankato head shop has pulled incense products that also contained intoxicating chemicals after federal and state agents raided a similar store in Duluth Wednesday.

An employee at Smokes 4 Less said owner Omar Wazwaz decided to take that type of incense off store shelves Thursday after hearing reports of the raids in Duluth and elsewhere. The incense was going to be available at the store through the end of the month, but Wazwaz changed his mind after the raids, she said.

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ST. PAUL - More synthetic drugs will be illegal under a law taking effect Wednesday, and a state agency will be able to act faster to make newly developed versions illegal.

Still, as makers of the so-called "designer drugs" continue to change chemical formulas to skirt the law, there will be lags between when a new drug is released and it is declared illegal.

State officials and law enforcement officers said Thursday that so much about the drugs known by names such as spice and 2C-E is not known, other than they threaten Minnesota's youth.

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