Category Archives: Drug Crimes
What to Make of the Good News About Fentanyl?
Florida is the land of many scary things, but one would be hard pressed to find something scarier than fentanyl. Alligators are scary, until you consider the American crocodiles at the far end of Miami-Dade County, plus the introduced species, such as the Nile monitor lizards that can grow to alligator length, swim like… Read More »
Can I Get In Trouble For Possession Of Gabapentin?
It was a normal Florida afternoon. David was driving his Ford truck, with his friend Nova in the passenger seat; the two had been helping Nova’s grandmother move to a new apartment. The police pulled them over because the truck had expired tags and, this being a Florida story, one thing led to another,… Read More »
Meet Iso, the Mega-Opioid Threatening South Florida
Florida is not for the faint of heart. Even the boldest and bravest people are no match for the terrifying sights, sounds, and events that the Sunshine State has in store. In fact, the best way to deal with the horrors of Florida is to put them in perspective by comparing them to something… Read More »
No, You Can’t Pay Your Bail With Drug Money
Police know that there are few scarier experiences than driving along one of South Florida’s delightfully flat roads, just minding your business and enjoying the effects of the evening’s weed, and then an hour later, being in a jail cell-like room in a police station, with a possible prison sentence awaiting you. Some people… Read More »
Scopolamine, the Scariest Drug Not to Be Categorized as a Controlled Substance
Schedule I controlled substances are the most illegal drugs in the United States, but the categorization of drugs into the five schedules of controlled substances is not directly related to the risk of death from overdose or adverse effects from the drug. For example, heroin and MDMA are Schedule I controlled substances, and both… Read More »
Drug Mule Diaries
When you are a kid, your parents, your teacher, and the media send the message that music stars are the coolest thing in the world, and drugs are the scariest. News reports full of police sirens and crime scene tape and “drugs are bad” assemblies in school focus on what drugs will do to… Read More »
Latest MDMA Research Fails to Convince FDA to Legalize It
MDMA is awesome; you don’t need to graduate from medical school to know that. If you want to see the wonders of MDMA, just attend any rave and see people who are the age where misanthropy is the essence of cool dancing together and thoroughly enjoying themselves. MDMA is also a Schedule I controlled… Read More »
PCP, Embalming Fluid, or Both
Our Miami drug crimes defense lawyer explains how PCP got one of the least appealing drug nicknames, namely embalming fluid, as well as the legal trouble that you can get into for smoking actual embalming fluid. PCP, Another Rejected Pharmaceutical Drug From the Trippy 50s Phencyclidine (PCP) was first synthesized in Germany in 1926. … Read More »
Right Here in South Florida, an LSD-Like Drug Gets One Step Closer to Becoming Legal
Ever since the days of Geocities, mothers have been taking to the Internet to tell strangers, from behind a wall of pseudonyms, about the substances that help them get through their day. Blogs were where you could sing the praises of your own Mother’s Little Helper without fear of judgment. Sometime during the George… Read More »
Florida’s Year of Uncertainty Regarding Cannabis Laws
Cannabis laws have changed a lot in the last decade, to say the least. Ten years ago, if you insinuated that the state or federal government was about to legalize marijuana, your friends would just congratulate you on how high you were and pass you the bong. Smoke shops bore signs that stated in… Read More »
Pill Presses Are Not Your Grandpa’s Drug Paraphernalia
Facing drug charges is no laughing matter, but the story of Gal Vallerius has all the hallmarks of a Miami New Times grade tall tale; even though the story spans the globe, it could only take place in Florida. You have to admit that OxyMonster is a fun screen name, almost as much fun… Read More »
Meet Dimethylpentylone, Florida’s Newest Designer Drug
The idea of designer drugs is nothing new, but drugs come and go from the drug supply so quickly that to trace their prevalence in South Florida from the time of the 60s counterculture through the disco age, the “Just Say No” era, the heyday of shady strip mall pain clinics and the hideous… Read More »
Confidential Informants: How to Be One, and What to Do If One Testifies Against You
Confidential informants add exciting twists to movies about crime and criminal investigations; depending on whether the story is told from the point of view of a defendant or a prosecutor, informants are either low down, rotten snitches or underdog heroes. Police often rely on tips from confidential informants in drug trafficking investigations, and sometimes… Read More »
Pink Cocaine, a Miami Original That Is Less Original Than It Sounds
In the 1980s, Miami Vice granted a pop culture mystique to several aspects of Miami’s aesthetic that never would have been cool in the 1970s. It wasn’t the obvious things, though, not the cops or the cocaine. Police-themed shows have represented an astonishingly large percentage of programming throughout the television era, and cocaine was… Read More »
Charged With A Drug Crime?
Schedule I controlled substances are the most illegal of illegal drugs. They do not have any legally approved medical uses, and it is illegal to possess them under any circumstances. By contrast, the drugs on the other four schedules have at least one legally acknowledged medical application. In other words, what the drugs on… Read More »
Floridian’s Guide to Quaaludes
Like so many once prevalent pharmaceutical drugs, methaqualone is now a Schedule I controlled substance. It was once popular with doctors to prescribe as a sleeping pill. The problem is that it was a little too popular with patients. If you think Ambien makes you behave out of character, you should see how the… Read More »
Federal Agency Says It’s High Time Federal Law Rescheduled Cannabis
It is a piece of news that cannabis aficionados across the United States have been hoping to hear for a long time. Last month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a memo to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in which it recommended removing cannabis from the list of Schedule I controlled… Read More »
What Not to Do at a Traffic Stop: Tales of Florida Man
Anger and fear are normal responses when a police officer pulls you over while you are driving and seems sure that you have drugs in your car, even though nothing about your driving behavior indicates that you are under the influence of drugs, and even though no drugs are visible in your car. Police… Read More »
All About Carfentanil, an Extremely Potent Synthetic Opioid
Clickbait is no longer a new tactic in sensational journalism, and people scroll right past headlines that include phrases like “jaw dropping” and “you won’t believe.” Fentanyl isn’t new, either, but it is scary enough that people will still click on headlines that include the phrase “scarier than fentanyl.” Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid about… Read More »
Two New Changes to Florida Cannabis Laws
Floridians know more about citrus than people in most parts of the world do. We know a Clementine from a tangelo and a grapefruit from a pomelo, and to the surprise of everyone, we have been known to wolf down kumquats in a single bite, peel and all. Despite our superior knowledge and impeccable… Read More »
