Category Archives: Drug Crimes
Recreational Cannabis In Florida Gets One Step Closer To Ballot Initiative
If your only evidence was the number of people rolling joints in plain sight, it would be understandable if you thought that recreational cannabis was legal in Florida and had been since before you arrived here. In fact, cannabis laws in Florida have changed quickly over the past decade, but recreational cannabis use remains… Read More »
New Florida Law Seeks To Regulate The Production And Sale Of Kratom
Many tropical regions have plants that do more than just look beautiful and make food taste better. Plants of the genus Cannabis grow anywhere that the weather is warm enough. In Yemen and East Africa, there is khat. South America has coca and the ingredients of ayahuasca. In Mexico and southern Texas, you can… Read More »
Is Possession Really Nine Tenths Of The Law?
If you get arrested for a crime, it is best to exercise your right to remain silent until you have a chance to talk to a criminal defense lawyer about your case. You will probably go into survival mode, and your mind will be swirling with every possible way that you can get out… Read More »
Driver’s License Suspension For Drug Possession Convictions Is Counterproductive, But The Practice Continues Unabated In Florida
Some corners of the Internet sing the praises of a world without automobiles, but the dream of a walkable utopia is not coming to Florida any time soon. People rely on their cars to go everywhere, including for commuting to and from work and picking up their children from school. They also rely on… Read More »
You Don’t Have To Be A Celebrity To Go To Drug Rehab Instead Of Jail While Awaiting Trial
It is as if, when it is a slow news day in South Florida, journalists have standing orders to recite the litany of criminal cases in which Bill Kapri, better known by his stage name Kodak Black, has been a defendant. It is a thrilling story, by all accounts; Kodak Black began recording music… Read More »
Mixed Messages About Ketamine From Medicine, Law, And Society
Ketamine is the world’s least dangerous anesthesia drug. It is PCP lite. Ketamine is nitrous oxide for grownups. Ketamine captures the ethos of Generation Z, giggling apathetically like minions, the way that cocaine, heroin, LSD, and weed (then known as pot, marijuana, reefer, doobies, and a host of other outdated nicknames) captivated the imaginations… Read More »
What Does The DEA’s Decision To Make Delta-8 A Controlled Substance Mean For Florida’s Cannabis Industry And Its Patrons?
As recently as the beginning of this millennium, legal cannabis was literally a pipe dream. You occasionally saw bumper stickers and T-shirts that said “Legalize It” over a picture of a cannabis leaf, but such merchandise was only available at concerts, independent record stores, and a certain reggae-themed kiosk at the Sawgrass Mills mall. … Read More »
Arrested For A Drug Crime?
Although methamphetamine is excellent at causing long periods of wakefulness in those who consume it, it is not especially good at instilling fear in people who have never consumed it. Our imaginations simply do not catastrophize about meth in the same way as they do about cocaine or opioids. Breaking Bad made meth look… Read More »
As Awesome As It May Be, Florida’s Own Philosopher’s Stone Mushroom Is A Schedule I Controlled Substance
An ancestor of modern medicine and chemistry was alchemy, which had as its goal the search for a substance that could cure all diseases, restore the elderly to youth, and transform ordinary metals into precious metals like gold and silver. Alchemists writing in Arabic, Latin, and other languages used to call this substance the… Read More »
Lawmakers Seek To Reduce Or Eliminate Sentencing Disparities Between Crack Cocaine And Powder Cocaine Cases
If you are younger than the oldest millennials, “crack cocaine” sounds more like a punchline than a drug of which you have a reasonable fear. The younger generations think of crack as a MacGuffin in action movies rather than a drug that causes fatal overdoses. Who is afraid of crack when there is heroin,… Read More »
What Does It Take For Prosecutors To Drop The Charges Against A Defendant?
Movies about defendants in criminal cases often portray a long ordeal where the main character gets acquitted at trial after months of preparing for the trial with his or her defense lawyer. This is not how most criminal cases go, even though all defendants have the constitutional right to a jury trial. You may… Read More »
Executive Order Pardons Thousands Of Defendants Convicted Of Cannabis Possession In Federal Cases
According to Florida law, possession of 20 grams or less of cannabis (that is, up to three quarters of an ounce) is a misdemeanor; the penalties can include a $1,000 fine, driver’s license suspension, and up to a year in jail. The passage of Amendment 2 in 2016 marked the beginning of Florida’s medical… Read More »
When Are You Immune From Drug Charges?
If it seems like some people openly use illegal drugs and don’t face any legal consequences, it is not just your imagination. When was the last time a police officer asked to search the backpack of a student from Pine Crest or Ransom Everglades who was hanging out at a mall after school just… Read More »
Florida Doctor Allegedly Sold Prescriptions For $2 Million In Opioids To Patients She Never Met
Healthcare is big business in the United States, and perhaps nowhere more so than Florida. For various reasons, the Sunshine State attracts people who are in a fragile state of health, such as elderly retirees and people who undergo treatment in Florida’s numerous inpatient addiction treatment centers and then get caught up in the… Read More »
Kodak Black Arrested For Possession Of Oxycodone After A Traffic Stop
You don’t have to be a media personality or a veteran of the criminal justice system to know that police sometimes conduct traffic stops for no reason other than to start trouble. Anyone with a modicum of common sense or life experience knows that cars with deeply tinted windows stand out from the crowd,… Read More »
Enter Xylazine, The Newest Twist In The Opioid Overdose Epidemic
The scariest drugs are the ones that do not reveal their identities until it is much too late. Everyone knows that you can die from drinking 21 shots of tequila on your 21st birthday, but you will probably be okay to drive after drinking one can of beer or even one shot of tequila. … Read More »
Boynton Beach Man Gets 380 Months In Federal Prison For Transporting Drugs To South Florida By FedEx
Especially in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, people had to get creative about finding alternatives to in-person socializing. Endlessly scrolling through Twitter is depressing enough even when you still have opportunities to put down your phone and interact with your coworkers in person every now and then, and playing Trivial Pursuit with… Read More »
Boca Raton Businessman Faces Criminal Charges For Manufacturing Counterfeit Lean
In 2022, no one is surprised to find out that doctors and pharmaceutical companies play a role in drug crimes. If you search the archives of South Florida news sites, you will find plenty of stories about doctors who illegally prescribed drugs with high abuse potential, healthcare workers who stole controlled substances from their… Read More »
Med Spa Maverick Received More Than $1 Million In PPP Loans While Drug Charges Against Him Were Pending
When med spas and “lotions and potions” multilevel marketing representatives try to sell skincare products to male clients, they act like it is news that skin care is for men, too, but in Florida, we have known this for decades. Everyone who has been to South Florida has seen its impossibly handsome dudes, but… Read More »
Nutritional Supplement Bros Headed To Prison For Conspiracy To Distribute Anabolic Steroids
Anabolic steroids are to the human body as iguanas are to the Florida ecosystem. The body naturally produces testosterone, which increases muscle mass, but anabolic steroids taken as pills or injections mimic the effects of testosterone except on a much larger scale, causing all kinds of dysfunction with the body’s own hormones. Walk into… Read More »
