FOLIO
Hardly a day goes by without at least one reader asking me when it will finally be legal to smoke cannabis in the great state of Florida, and my answer is always the same: It’ll probably be around two years, maybe fewer. As I noted last week, the rise of Andrew Gillum as the Democratic nominee for governor, coupled with an amazing series of verbal gaffes (or, some would say, blatant dog-whistling to the alt-right) by Republican nominee Ron DeSantis, raise the once-unlikely specter of a party switch in Tallahassee. This phenomenon would then mean we might not have to wait for a ballot referendum in 2020—an election that already lives in infamy, years before it’s actually happened. (Spoiler alert: Covfefe.)
Of course, locals aren’t waiting for the suits to sanction their fun and games. Florida Man has never been known for his patience, as far as trusting the process goes, and recent news bears that out. As the eyes of the world were focused northward, as nefarious Hurricane Florence was speeding toward the Mid-Atlantic coast, Florida was facing a flood of its own—a flood of flower. More than 100 pounds of bundled-up plant matter washed up on beaches in St. Johns, Flagler and Volusia counties within hours of each other, wrapped separately for freshness and ease of distribution. Jake and the Fatman contend that the storm caused irregularities in the rising and ebbing tides, twerking the bound booty and ruining somebody’s day, if not somebody’s life.
Among the states of the Southeastern U.S., the Sunshine State has long been the locus for “Lime Pillows,” “Love Nuggets” and our “Little Green Friends,” going back to the glory days of Gainesville Green. (Ahh, the GG.) Historically, these coastal waters along our celebrated shores have been used to traffick everything from cocaine to prostitutes—and by “historically,” I mean mere hours ago. Our state’s black market in “Black Maria” has been a multimillion-dollar business for longer than most of us have been alive, and getting a cut of those illicit profits was certainly a motivating factor in the legalization of medical marijuana. Full legalization would destroy the black market and spur dramatic drops in prices, as we’ve seen in Oregon, where weed now sells for as low as four bucks a gram.
Amazingly, it seems that only one person tried to keep some of that illicit “Indian Hay,” even with Christmas just three months away. That unsung hero was promptly snitched out to authorities, slapped with a felony charge just for doing his part to fight the heinous scourge of littering; I doubt that the poor lady’s children will ever speak to her again. Certainly, if that selfish act had happened in Duval County, nothing—not a seed, not a bloom—would have been detected, which is probably why nothing has been found. It’s all been confiscated by now, however, and you can bet your baggie that it’s destined to be burned, somehow, some way, by someone or another.
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