Folio Weed

Words by Shelton Hull

Here we are, at the start of a fresh new year, with fresh new stories to tell. Admittedly, not as many as one might have liked. 2025 marks the ninth year of “Folio Weed,” and I was planning to spend this year fighting to maintain market share within my own little segment of the industry, but instead I’ve pretty much got that market to myself. 

Had Amendment 3 passed in November, there would be entrepreneurs, small businesses and big corporations alike, all lined up to do their canna-biz here in Florida, and the only question would be how quickly revenue broke the billion-dollar mark. And every local media outlet from here to Miami, none of whom were even slightly interested in this topic until last year, would have their own people assigned to the weed beat, and they would all have infinite resources to do even more of that weak-sauce warbling that passes for journalism in a state that gaslit itself right off the electoral map. 

Had the coverage been even close to passable, then maybe citizens would’ve had the correct information they needed to make the right decisions for themselves and their communities. Instead, both sides lied about the amendment and its implications for months, with zero pushback from media outlets that, let’s face it, cannot afford to turn down advertising from anyone. I was going to say that you get what you pay for, but in this case that is certainly not true.

So all those companies and investors that spent last year biding their time, waiting for what then seemed like the inevitable passage of Amendment 3, so they could flood Florida with money and jobs? Well, they’re all gone, and they’re probably never coming back. All that money spent to get it on the ballot came with implied conditions, and since those conditions were not met, then there must be consequences. After all, they’re all drug dealers, and the principles work exactly the same, whether the drug is legal or not. So you can definitely expect all kinds of behind the scenes activity at the major dispensary companies, and when those changes happen, remember where you heard it first.

Now, the absence of activity doesn’t mean there’s any lack of news. Far from it. One extremely weird story that broke right before press-time would normally find its way into our “Crime Time” feature, but given the details, it fits perfectly here. Actually, “extremely weird” might be an understatement because it’s gonna be a while (probably) before someone trumps a certain unnamed local defense attorney who was arrested in early January as part of an investigation into drug smuggling at the Duval County jail.

Drug smuggling has been a problem in jails and prisons for as long as drugs have existed, and their appeal to people in that position is obvious. The means of muling product have ranged from human body cavities to drones, but this guy apparently found a whole new groove. The drug in question was Adb-pinaca, a synthetic cannabis product similar to “spice” or “K2.” It has many different names, but it’s all just bad, as we’ve discussed in previous columns. Every batch has different ingredients and different effects, but this stuff was a particularly sketchy mix of pure synthetic chemicals. Legal documents were then soaked in the resulting liquid, and that paper was sent into the jail, where it would likely be used to roll cigarettes with loose tobacco. 

That stuff will give you the kind of hangover that will make you go straight edge, at best. At worst, it will kill you, as it has been linked to overdoses inside the jail, the numbers for which are thankfully much lower now than they were a year ago. This kind of scandal results from the climate of ignorance and fear in which all public discussion of cannabis has been had for nearly 100 years. This is exactly what Amendment 3 was meant to help prevent, but it was collateral damage from an election year in which Florida was basically asleep at the wheel. Now, as a result, the keys have been taken away from us, and that’s fair.