Saint Paul, Minn. — Republican lawmakers in the Minnesota Senate today passed historic new legislation to make the drinking, possession or sale of alcoholic beverages a crime.
“For all who care deeply about the horrific damage that highly addictive alcoholic drinks are doing to young Minnesotans’ brains, and the carnage created by drunk driving, this is a tremendous victory,” said Senate Majority Leader Paul Purity (R-Dryville).
In the midst of Republicans’ successful effort to preserve marijuana prohibition, Purity said he and other Republicans came to the realization that they also needed to prohibit alcohol use. Alcohol was last illegal in the United States from 1920 to 1933.
“It dawned on us that alcohol is much more addictive, lethal and damaging to young brains than marijuana, so to be consistent we needed to bring back alcohol prohibition,” said Senator Warren Dimmer (R-Chaste), a key marijuana and alcohol prohibition supporter.
Opponents of alcohol prohibition tried unsuccessfully to keep alcohol legal while enacting a series of initiatives to limit the harm caused by youth alcohol abuse and drunk driving. But alcohol prohibition proponents successfully argued that such efforts would be insufficient.
Under the new alcohol prohibition law, criminal penalties will be identical to what is currently in place for marijuana offenders.
To prepare for the new law, Republicans said they will support a massive increase in state spending for what they dubbed a “war on alcohol.” Among other things, that will mean millions more in state and local funding for more police, prosecutors, and prisons to make room for the thousands of Minnesotans expected to be arrested in coming years under the new law.
However, finding sufficient funding for the new war on alcohol could prove to be a challenge. Because of the new alcohol prohibition law, the state will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenue as the alcohol excise tax is eliminated. Also, hundreds of Minnesota bars will be required to close, and the resulting unemployment will cause the demand for social services to increase as income tax and sales tax revenues decrease.
“The booze heads on the fringe of society are exaggerating the implications,” said Purity. “The new law does pose challenges, but we couldn’t logically justify support for marijuana prohibition unless we also supported alcohol prohibition, We didn’t want to look like hypocritical morons.”
Jubilant law enforcement and prison officials joined Senators Purity and Dimmer at a celebratory State Capitol news conference. They praised the vote, and said they can’t wait to begin ramping up their hiring and purchasing of new military-style equipment to crack down on drinkers.
Meanwhile, a small group of deflated pro-alcohol activists drank beer on the steps of the State Capitol Building in defiance of the vote. When the law becomes effective on July 1, 2019, such activity will become a crime.
Note: Just in case you’re unbelievably gullible, this is satire, not actual news.
Nicely done! I generally am not in favor of legalizing marijuana primarily because I think advocates for legalization tend to not acknowledge that using it does come with health risks. That and how will impairment be monitored for activities such as driving?
Thanks Cameron. Not sure if you saw it, but I did a piece calling for investing in mitigating downsides — https://www.wrywingpolitics.com/easing-drawbacks-legalizing-marijuana-minnesota/
That said, the catastrophic downsides of ruining the lives of thousands of people, mostly people of color and people just starting their lives, by prosecuting, fining and jailing marijuana users and sellers also needs to be in the mix.
Thanks for the link to the earlier post, I think I missed it. It addressed and acknowledged my concerns. And I agree with you about the disproportionate impact a marijuana possession conviction can have on a person’s life. Along that line reform regarding the restoration of voting rights needs to happen. I know it will not go anywhere in the Minnesota Senate while the Republicans are in control, but perhaps after the next election they will be the minority party.
Agree on restoration of voting rights. It was great to see that pass on the ballot in FL, and discouraging to see the their Legislature trying overrule that vote.
You have pointed out a hypocrisy which I have always found galling. I have no problem with legalizing cannabis. There are lots of things that are dangerous, but trying to protect everyone from all of them creates more problems than it solves.
The racism and classism behind the drug war have been particularly pernicious, but so has the inconvenience, risk, and/or deprivation experienced by perfectly functional people who enjoy cannabis now and then the way many people enjoy having a beer or two. I use cannabis for migraine, and I don’t mean the kind the state sells either. In the case of cannabis, the law–to quote Mr. Bumble the Beadle in Oliver Twist–is an ass.
Agree. That law is an ass.
The Strib had a big front page feature on the debate a few weeks ago with charts on things like the chance in underage use and DUIs in states that have legalized candidates. It focused only on the downsides.
How about a chart showing that the number of people needlessly jailed decreased from tens of thousands to zero overnight? How about a chart showing how much less of taxpayer’s money was wasted on marijuana-associated police, prosecutor and prison resources?