Kudos to columnist John Romano for acknowledging that it is long past time to correct Florida's 'ill-advised anti-marijuana crusade.' No other state routinely punishes minor marijuana infractions more severely than Florida. Under state law, marijuana possession of 20 grams or less (about two-thirds of an ounce) is a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to one year imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Marijuana possession over 20 grams, as well as the cultivation of even a single pot plant, are defined by law as felony offenses - punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Annually, an estimated 60,000 Floridians are arrested for possessing marijuana, the third-highest total of any state. [continues 73 words]
Petitions will hit the streets soon for a proposed constitutional amendment that would fully legalize marijuana use, possession and cultivation by adults in Florida. A political-action committee called Floridians For Freedom, associated with a longtime marijuana-advocacy group called the Florida Cannabis Action Network, said Tuesday that it had received state approval to begin seeking signatures to get their measure on the November 2016 ballot. The measure is distinct from another amendment drive run by United For Care and led by Orlando lawyer John Morgan because Morgan's group wants to legalize marijuana for medical purposes only. Floridians For Freedom wants it legalized for all uses, including recreation. [continues 191 words]
A new federal program that reduces drug offenders' long sentences should cut costs and improve the judicial system. But the exercise requires close monitoring. No one should forget the culprits were sent to prison for grave crimes. The drug trade, after all, kills thousands each year - users and those killed in the violent street crimes related to drugs. Illegal drugs' devastating damage to society should not be minimized as federal officials ease sentencing practices. But, as the Tribune's Elaine Silvestrini found, the Justice Department's Smart on Crime Initiative looks to be a reasonable way to reduce inordinately long sentences without giving criminals a pass. [continues 546 words]
When I was 13 years old, I decided to never touch drugs or alcohol due to my family's history of addiction. And I stuck to it. But if I trust author Johann Hari's recent TED Talk, "Everything you know about addiction is wrong," I should feel free to experiment. In the talk, Hari argues that the sole root of and cure for addiction is human connection, but there are some dangerous flaws in his argument. Hari's thesis is that there is no physical component to addiction, only a psychological one that is specifically an attempt to fill the void of human connection. The evidence he provides to illustrate this, though, is a study on lab rats that showed they would not drink cocaine water if they had friends, Portugal's decriminalizing of all drugs, and a professor who proposed calling addiction "bonding." [continues 472 words]
As America entered the 21st century, Florida became the home of retirees, tourists and prescription drug abusers. Law enforcement officials referred to Interstate 75 as the 'Oxy Express,' as people flooded into Florida to take advantage of the state's easy access to drugs. 'Florida was ground zero for pill mills,' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Simon Gaugush. During a six-month period in 2010 at just one pill mill in Tampa, 1,906 patients from 23 states made 4,715 visits. Doctors at this one facility wrote prescriptions for 1 million oxycodone pills. [continues 2762 words]
Staff Researches Idea for a Much-Reduced Penalty for Small Amounts. WEST PALM BEACH - Palm Beach County is considering making possession of a small amount of marijuana a civil infraction - the equivalent of a traffic ticket - rather than a criminal offense. But a number of issues need to be worked out in order for this approach to receive broad-based support or at least acceptance from law enforcement and the criminal justice system stakeholders," Assistant County Administrator Jon Van Arnam wrote in a memo Aug. 14. [continues 426 words]
TAMPA - On Nov. 1, 120 federal drug offenders sentenced in Tampa will be released from prison as part of a rollback of federal drug penalties. Among the prisoners tasting freedom will be Lucas Lopez, 86, and his son, Benito, 47, Miami commercial fishermen who have served 22 years of their 30-year sentences after being convicted of conspiracy to distribute more than 5 kilos of cocaine in Tampa. For both men, it was their first conviction. Neither had any disciplinary issues in 22 years behind bars, according to their lawyer, Conrad Kahn of the Federal Public Defender's office. [continues 1547 words]
In response to "Hepatitis cases exploding in U.S." (Nation & World, Aug. 8): Twenty years ago that headline could have been written in Switzerland. An AIDS epidemic was out of control. The Swiss were so desperate they tried something radical: They allowed hardA-core addicts to register with the state to receive clean heroin. It was controversial at first, but in 2008 the public voted to include "heroin-assisted treatment" as a normal part of their national health system. They also made methadone freely available as a pharmaceutical. The proA-gram pays for itself in improved public health and safety. It also enables addicts to hold jobs and pay taxes. The average age at registration as an addict is slowly rising, indicating that kids are not becoming addicted, and the number of addicts needing her-oin has stabilized at about 1,300, in a population about the same as Florida. [continues 56 words]
Hallandale Officials Likely to Approve $100 Civil Fine HALLANDALE BEACH - Gone to pot? Get caught in Hallandale Beach with up to 20 grams of marijuana, and you may be looking at a $100 civil fine instead of criminal charges. Following the lead of Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County, Hallandale Beach city commissioners are expected to give initial approval to the new law Wednesday night. City Commissioner Keith London won quick support from his colleagues after pitching the idea in June. Should the measure pass, Hallandale Beach might be the first city in Broward County to pass such a measure. [continues 282 words]
A new poll finds that two-thirds of likely Florida voters are willing to vote yes for medical marijuana legalization. The survey, done by St. Pete Polls, finds majority support for medical marijuana in every market of the state. Overall, 68.2 percent of those surveyed say "yes" when asked: "If the new medical marijuana initiative makes it on to the ballot this year will you vote for it?" "No," got 25.3 percent, and just 6.5 percent said they were undecided. [continues 187 words]
There is a destination where you're about five times more likely to be incarcerated than the rest of the world. It's got only 4 percent of the planet's population but claims more than 20 percent of the world's population behind bars. It's not Syria, and it's not Cuba. That place is the United States of America. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the number of prisoners in the United States has increased more than seven times during this author's almost 50 years. Two million people in America live behind the walls. America imprisons at an astounding rate of 716 of every 100,000 people. The Prison Policy Initiative ranks Florida 10th in the U.S., imprisoning people at a rate of 891 people per 100,000. Florida's "lock 'em up" rate ranks well above authoritarian regimes such as Cuba, Rwanda and the Russian Federation. In 1970, the Florida Department of Corrections imprisoned just 8,793. Thirty years later, the number has multiplied more than 11 times to greater than 100,000 men and women in state prisons. [continues 236 words]
Re: Notorious drug kingpin escapes | July 13 In Don Winslow's most recent book, The Cartel, he describes the elaborately choreographed escape of the head of the fictional El Federacin, the world's most powerful drug cartel. The book's time proximity to Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's escape (it was just published in June) gives Winslow's story a prescient quality. Winslow's account also undercuts the simplistic accusation (made by Donald Trump among others) that the escape is evidence of Mexican malevolence toward the United States. By portraying the global impact and political complexities of the illegal drug business, he shows that it is the marketplace that determines the direction of the drug business. Thus it is not a problem that will be solved by changing immigration law or policy. How would tweaking immigration policy have curtailed the illegal importation of alcohol during Prohibition? [continues 64 words]
For the past three years, Florida's Legislature has failed to pass a bill that would create a needle exchange program leaving the state without a program to help drug addicts avoid exposure to disease through dirty needles. But stark new figures released this week show heroin use is surging across the country and is up around 63% in the last decade, according to a new report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In another recent study, doctors at the University of Miami and Jackson Memorial Hospital found that over one year, cases of infection at Jackson Memorial caused by injection drug use led to 17 deaths at a cost of $11.4 million, much of it borne by taxpayers. [continues 746 words]
John Morgan, 59, is founder of the Morgan & Morgan law firm, headquartered in Orlando. He also is chairman of the pro-medical marijuana group United For Care, which is planning a second attempt, in 2016, to get statewide approval for a constitutional amendment to legalize medical marijuana in Florida. He spoke with staff writer Scott Powers. What kind of business opportunities are likely to emerge if medical marijuana is legalized? There will be greenhouses and grow houses; there will be dispensaries; there will be different industries that will produce ways to deliver medical marijuana, whether its brownie pans or pipes or whatever. And there will be real estate opportunities that will emerge. [continues 591 words]
In response to 'False assumptions' (Your Views, July 7): The users of cannabis claim not a single person has died from using it. This may be true in regard to overdoses, but it is damaging to one's lungs and leads to other drug abuse, including pills, cocaine and stronger synthetic marijuana. These stronger forms of marijuana lead to hallucinations and people harming themselves or others. Marijuana is not conducive to people driving, operating heavy equipment or doing any other job where the public is concerned. Drugs are poisoning our younger people, and marijuana is the first phase and should remain illegal. Stephen Burchett, Seffner [end]
I last served on a jury in 2007. When the 25 or so of us were called and brought into the courtroom, we were told the defendant was being tried for drug trafficking a=C2=80" four dime bags of marijuana. About ha lf of the people groaned in disA-belief, with one asking, "You brought us all the way down here for this?" A few said they thought drugs should be legalized. One woman told how drug convictions ruined her brother's life. Others simply felt the amount involved wasn't worth prosecuting. [continues 512 words]
In response to "Giant joint riles some" (July 7): Excellent report by Mike Salinero. He quoted one "drugfree" leader, "When you promote drug legalization on a float in a parade, it can give a really bad message to children." That may be obvious to adults, but not to kids. Even the widely reported transition to recreational marijuana in Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon has had no effect. According to the "Monitoring The Future" reports, use of marijuana among U.S. adolescents decreased sharply in 2014, just as the media was reporting efforts to legalize in several additional states. We must base policy not on belief or opinion, but on evidence when it is available. John Chase, Palm Harbor [end]
I know that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, but the recent commentary you ran called 'What happened to the pot stigma?' (Views) has some false assumptions in it. Many of us don't believe that cannabis is dangerous. How many people have died from ingesting cannabis? Not a single one, I believe. How many deaths are caused yearly from prescription pain medicines? Forty-six deaths a day and rising. Also, I would like to point out that a new study in The Lancet Psychiatry found no increase in teen pot usage in states where medical marijuana is legal. Jamie Howe, New Port Richey [end]
Pro-Pot Group's Float Rolled Through Temple Terrace Nothing says Fourth of July like an orange stretch limo pulling a giant marijuana cigarette down Main Street. Local members of the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws used a float in Temple Terrace's Independence Day parade Saturday to promote their views. The reaction from anti-drug groups was anything but mellow. The Hillsborough County Anti-Drug Alliance and Drug Free America Foundation sent out a dual news release Monday afternoon criticizing the float and questioning why parade organizers allowed it. [continues 629 words]
Tommy Powell, international drug smuggler, picked an odd time to think about where he would like to retire. It was 1984. Powell, who was just in his mid 30s, had been extradited after spending a decade on the lam overseas. He stood accused of importing more than 300,000 pounds of marijuana into the United States. A maximum sentence of life plus 70 years would have left details of his retirement entirely in the hands of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. [continues 1350 words]
The Easy-To-Make Narcotic Is Often Made In Abandoned Buildings ST. PETERSBURG - An overdose during the weekend and the discovery of a mobile home lab showcase a resurgent crime problem in Pinellas County: Methamphetamine activity, by one measure, has nearly doubled in the past six months. Deputies discovered the overdose victim in the intersection of Alternate 19 and Klosterman Road and made three arrests in the discovery of the meth lab nearby, operating out of an abandoned trailer at 4720 Roberts Road. [continues 427 words]
Re: Fact And Fiction On Medical Pot | June 22, Editorial The referenced Lancet article concluded that while pot use is higher in states that have legal pot as medicine, usage did not increase when the medical marijuana law was enacted. Corroboration is found in another statistic in the same database used by researchers who wrote that article. In 15 of the last 16 years, 12th-graders have said that marijuana availability has decreased from the year before. During that 16-year period, almost 20 states enacted medical marijuana laws. These two facts, taken together, directly contradict the Florida Sheriffs Association's assertion that enacting medical marijuana laws makes pot easier for adolescents to get. John G. Chase, Palm Harbor [end]
One of the key arguments used by opponents of legalizing medical marijuana in Florida should be put to rest. A study recently published in The Lancet Psychiatry concludes that medical marijuana laws do not increase use of marijuana by teenagers. As the supporters of medical marijuana prepare for another campaign for a constitutional amendment, this important study should reduce the overheated rhetoric and ease some public concerns. To be sure, heavy pot use can cause physical and psychological dangers in youths whose brains and personalities are still forming. [continues 436 words]
Marijuana Has Gotten More Dangerous. At Stake Is The Safety Of Our Youth Twenty years ago, drug dealers were seen for what they were - criminal and dangerous elements in our society. They were shunned by the mainstream. People who sold marijuana were considered losers, in the business of harming our children. Parents warned their kids to stay away from those known to use drugs. But thanks to the marijuana lobby, what was once scorned is hyped and celebrated - even as the drug has become more potent, with THC, the intoxicating chemical, present at much higher levels than in the 1990s. Dealers run state-sanctioned dispensaries, lobby to further legalize their product and receive positive media coverage when doing so. [continues 678 words]
South Florida's elected officials have begun lining up behind a proposal to make minor marijuana possession a civil infraction rather than a criminal charge. The pitch is the same: Hand out $100 fines rather than jail time. It's being made by a number of local lawmakers in different cities and counties. And there are plenty of good reasons why they're right. Diverting those caught with a small amount of marijuana toward civil infractions would help alleviate criminal court backlogs and jail overcrowding. In 2010, more than 757,000 Americans sat in jail on pot charges, according to the ACLU; Nearly 58,000 in Florida alone. The move also would free up police to investigate more serious crimes and provide an alternative to ruining a person's life for a relatively harmless act. [continues 541 words]
Pot enforcement was a big ongoing story back when I landed my first newspaper job 45 years ago. Oh my, how we did love those police-combat-scourge-of-marijuana stories. The Mississippi town where I worked suffered plenty of sure-enough serious crime, but robberies and burglaries, even the occasional Saturday night juke-joint killing, would hardly turn an editor's head. If the local police managed a pot bust, that was front page stuff. The stories ran alongside photographs of the police chief, the arresting officer, the mayor himself, all them stern faced, standing behind a table displaying baggies of marijuana, rolling papers, a roach clip, a bong the size of an alto saxophone. [continues 404 words]
The latest drug craze, flakka, is coming on with a rush, sending up to 20 people a day to emergency rooms across Broward County. Such a flood of cases from a single street drug has doctors striving to devise treatments, and medical researchers laboring to understand the drug that delivers an instant high - and causes organ failure, scours kidneys like drain cleaner and sends users into a state of gibbering helplessness. Holy Cross Hospital's Dr. John Cunha calls flakka "the perfect storm." [continues 671 words]
HALLANDALE BEACH - People caught with a bag of marijuana weighing less than 20 grams would face a fine instead of arrest under a plan pushed by Commissioner Keith London. Hallandale Beach may be the first city in Broward County to embrace the relaxed law. London says he has been following a similar push by elected leaders in Miami Beach and Miami-Dade County to treat misdemeanor possession of marijuana as a civil offense with a $100 fine. Miami-Dade commissioners are expected to vote on the plan June 30. Miami Beach has already given preliminary approval to a similar proposal. [continues 244 words]
The new visibility of police violence toward African-Americans has stoked public debate about policing: What about body cameras? Should we reform police training? Perhaps we should go slow on all that military gear? I find it difficult to sit through any of this while the underlying issue goes unaddressed: It's the drug economy, stupid. It's well past time to legalize marijuana. But it's also time to consider decriminalizing nonviolent crimes involving other drugs, or at least to reclassify lower-level, nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors. We should also expunge felony convictions for many classes of nonviolent drug offenses to re-enfranchise, economically and politically, those who have staffed the drug trade. [continues 450 words]
The new visibility of police violence toward African-Americans has stoked public debate about policing: What about body cameras? Should we reform training? Perhaps we should go slow on all that military gear? I find it almost impossible to sit through any of this while the underlying issue goes unaddressed: It's the drug economy, stupid. It's well past time to legalize marijuana. But it's also time to consider decriminalizing nonviolent crimes involving other drugs, or at least to reclassify lower-level, nonviolent offenses as misdemeanors. We should also expunge felony convictions for many classes of nonviolent drug offenses a=C2=80" those involving marijuana bu t for other drugs, too a=C2=80" to re-enfranchise, economically and politically, those who have staffed the drug trade. [continues 776 words]
A Canadian teenager caught up in a double killing in Florida will ask a judge on Wednesday to grant him bail pending a trial that could lead to his life-long imprisonment. Marc Wabafiyebazu has pleaded not guilty to felony first degree murder and other charges in a drug-related shootout in March that left his 17-year-old brother, Jean Wabafiyebazu, dead. Court documents filed in support of the bail application argue that Marc Wabafiyebazu, son of a senior Canadian diplomat, was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. [continues 463 words]
We've all seen videos of Third World "police" in combat gear putting down demonstrations by physically assaulting protesters, turning heavy equipment and tear gas on them, or shooting into crowds. That's what makes the recent events in Baltimore all the more disturbing. This time the "peace officers" in military combat gear, brandishing military-grade weapons and perched on armored military vehicles, were ours. No one knows what the Baltimore protests will look like in the coming days, though the criminal charges filed against six police officers in the homicide of Freddie Gray may have a calming effect. But the recent violence there and elsewhere has brought long-overdue attention to an important national development that had all but been ignored: the militarization of our police. [continues 541 words]
MIAMI - A hazardous new synthetic drug originating in China is being blamed for 18 recent deaths in a single South Florida county, as police grapple with an inexpensive narcotic that causes exaggerated strength and dangerous paranoid hallucinations. On Thursday, the Fort Lauderdale police killed a man, reportedly high on the man-made street drug, alpha-PVP, known more commonly as flakka, who had held a woman hostage with a knife to her throat. The shooting of Javoris Washington, 29, was the latest in a series of volatile episodes that the police in South Florida have faced with highly aggressive drug users. Law enforcement agencies have had difficulty tamping down a surge in synthetic drugs, which were banned after becoming popular in clubs five years ago only to re-emerge deadlier than ever under new formulations. As soon as legislation catches up with the latest craze, manufacturers design a new drug to take its place, federal and local law enforcement agencies say. [continues 867 words]
Doctors, advocates at conference say cannabis is a safe, effective drug that should be widely available. WEST PALM BEACH - Pro-pot activists and physicians offer a simple prescription for cannabis: Make it an easy-to-buy, over-the-counter drug. "Marijuana should be available like aspirin," weed activist Jon Gettman said Friday during an event at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. "It is safe, it is effective.Cannabis needs to be cheap and widely available." Gettman, a professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University in Virginia, was one of the pot researchers who traveled to West Palm Beach for a medical marijuana conference hosted by the nonprofit Patients Out of Time. [continues 295 words]
War on Drugs needs a new strategy after 46 failed years, columnist says On Wednesday, March 4, Derek Cruice became the latest unarmed person to be shot to death in a U.S. drug raid staged to seize marijuana. This Volusia County Sheriff's raid succeeding in saving 217 grams (about half-a-pound) of that drug from being loosed on our streets and it only cost one human life. Apparently, law enforcement doesn't think statistics on incidents such as these are worth keeping, so it is very hard to tell how many folks have been killed in the manner of Cruice. However, the CATO Institute a=C2=80" one of the only entities that does keep any such statistics a=C2=80"shows that between 1985 and 2010, SWAT team raids in the U.S. accounted for the deaths of 46 innocent people, 25 nonviolent offenders, and 30 law enforcers. [continues 632 words]
Florida needs medical marijuana. I'm not referring to the palliative relief that medical marijuana brings to patients but, rather, the protective effect it has against prescription narcotic abuses in a state famous for "pill mills." Research published in 2014 in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that states with open medical-marijuana access appear to have a 25 percent lower opioid-overdose death rate than marijuana-prohibition states. States with established access showed a 33 percent reduction in overdose deaths. [continues 72 words]
The proposal to give only civil citations to juveniles for possessing marijuana may sound reasonable, but Hillsborough County officials should be skeptical. Unless accompanied by rigorous safeguards, a civil citation program will likely result in more drug abuse and more crime. Don't be misled into thinking pot use is a frivolous crime. As Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee points out, drug use is the common denominator to most crime. Or as Mark Cox of the State Attorney's Office says: 'Most all the serious crime we see is related to drugs, and almost all the drug abuse started with marijuana. ... When you talk about stopping drug abuse, [having offenders] picking up cans is not going to help.' To discourage drug use, marijuana offenses should bring immediate consequences that convey to the young offenders that drugs are dangerous and illegal. [continues 264 words]
During the just-ended session, Florida legislators had an opportunity to add some legal and regulatory sanity to the medical marijuana movement. But they blew it - again. Rather than tweak last year's law so that thousands of Floridians living with debilitating illnesses could have access to limited-use low-THC cannabis oil (CS/ SB 7066), for example, legislators fumbled, stumbled and then balked. It is unlikely to come up during an expected special session in June because legislators need to deal with health care funding and passing a state budget. "It's probably not going to happen," Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, declared. [continues 558 words]
The Florida House of Representatives failed us, yet again. I never had much faith in Tallahassee to do the right thing. But I continue to have tremendous faith in the compassion of the people of Florida to do what the politicians refused to. April 28 marked the first day of our 2016 campaign for medical marijuana. We will put this issue back before the voters. We will win. JOHN MORGAN, CORAL GABLES [end]
Regarding "State's medical pot law takes hit" (Other Views. April 21): Cerise Naylor tactfully understates the selfishness of those who have kept sick children horn getting life-saving marijuana. I would not have been so tactful. The problems began when legislators, who had all come of age in marijuana prohibition, wrote Senate SB1030 as a restrictive bill focused on business, control and fear of voter reaction a=C2=80" not on compassion. If they had consulted a few of the first 12 states, with a combined 146 years of experience, they'd have known that Florida has nothing to fear from medical marijuana. [continues 120 words]
As the state's efforts to get a noneuphoric medical-marijuana oil to severely epileptic children move forward, the University of Florida is proposing a study to answer a key question: Does it even work? Dr. Paul Carney, professor at the UF Department of Pediatrics and Neurology, has sent a research proposal to the Florida Department of Health to start finding out. The department is reviewing the requests. Carney has proposed enrolling 50 Florida children with epilepsy in an experiment to see whether a particular brand of medicinal oil drawn from marijuana, called Epidiolex, can reduce their seizures after other drugs were found to be ineffective. [continues 489 words]
Since June 2014 medical marijuana has been legal in Florida thanks to the Florida Legislature's passage of Senate Bill 1030 that year. Unfortunately, Florida patients still wait for the law to become a reality in their medical treatment due to continuing delays in implementation of the statute. Floridians suffering from debilitating conditions such as cancer, epilepsy, ALS, MS and Parkinson's are left wondering what, if any, relief will come to them via Tallahassee this year. SB 1030 has been faced with setback after setback, and Florida's frustrated patients deserve answers. [continues 335 words]
Florida voters overwhelmingly support legalization of marijuana - for both medical and recreational use. Medical marijuana was supported by 84 percent and opposed by 14 percent in a Quinnipiac University Poll released Monday. Recreational use of marijuana was supported by 55 percent of those surveyed and opposed by 42 percent. Support for medical marijuana spans the political spectrum: 92 percent among Democrats, 87 percent among independents and 73 percent among Republicans. A 2014 referendum to legalize medical marijuana fell just short of the 60 percent required for passage even though the idea had overwhelming support in polls: 88 percent on July 28 and May 5, 2014, and 82 percent on Nov. 21, 2013. The pro-marijuana side ran a barely noticeable campaign and opponents ran a far more effective, and expensive, effort to appeal to voters. [continues 129 words]
When Roxanne Dube was appointed consul-general to Miami last November, her sons Marc and Jean Wabafiyebazu seemed enthusiastic about the move. After spending much of their lives in Ottawa and Zimbabwe, the teens, 15 and 17, relished the idea of living in a city that has featured as a backdrop for many blockbuster films. "For them it really was a big move," their father Germano Wabafiyebazu said in an interview. "You see Miami in movies and everything, so to be now going there =C2=85 they were really enthusiastic." [continues 743 words]
Canadian consul's son killed, other charged Bloodstains were still visible in the doorway of an apartment in the quiet Miami neighbourhood of Coral Way on Wednesday, two days after an alleged plan to rip off a drug dealer left one of the sons of Canada's Consul General to Florida dead and another charged with murder. Jean Wabafiyebazu, the 17-year-old son of longtime diplomat Roxanne Dube, died in hospital of injuries suffered in Monday's shootout, which police say erupted during a dispute over two pounds of marijuana, valued at US$5,000. His 15-year-old brother Marc is being held in a youth detention centre, charged with felony murder and potentially facing the death penalty. [continues 921 words]
The teenage son of a Canadian diplomat, already facing felony murder charges in Florida, is now charged with threatening to kill a veteran homicide detective. Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, was arrested Monday after a gun battle erupted in a quiet, upscale Miami neighbourhood, leaving his older brother Jean, 17, dead. While he is yet to be formally charged, he is facing one count of felony murder and an additional count of threatening a public servant. Their mother, Canadian Consul General Roxanne Dube, who took on the diplomatic role in February, was reportedly denied in her request to have her surviving son extradited to Canada to face charges, according to CBS News. [continues 677 words]
MIAMI - Canada's top government official in Miami is planning the funeral of her 17-year-old son and the legal defence of her 15-year-old after the brothers took part in what Florida police call an attempted drug ripoff. The brothers - both armed with guns - used her black Canadian government BMW with diplomatic plates as a lookout vehicle as they tried to rob the drug dealers Monday afternoon at an apartment complex in the Coral Way district, police say. [continues 384 words]
Younger son faces murder charge in what Miami police call a drug dispute MIAMI - Canada's top government official in Miami is planning the funeral of her 17-year-old son and the legal defence of her 15-year-old after the brothers took part in what Florida police call an attempted drug ripoff. The brothers - both armed with guns - used her black Canadian government BMW with diplomatic plates as a lookout vehicle as they tried to rob the drug dealers Monday afternoon at an apartment complex in the Coral Way district, police say. [continues 457 words]
Re: March 28, editorial "Dangerous Dithering On Medical Marijuana" Tallahassee today reminds me of the 1950s, when the place was run by North Florida's 'Pork Chop Gang' and the joke was that district lines were drawn according to the number of pine trees. Democrats knew they'd be re-elected because they always had. Then, in the turbulent times of the '60s and '70s, Florida became a two-party state. Incumbents began to be challenged, and challengers began to win. Florida is overdue for change to vote out today's cynical politicians and get leaders who value public service more than re-election. John G.Chase, Palm Harbor [end]
SARASOTA COUNTY - The 27-year-old man was found dead on Feb. 24 inside a Walmart bathroom in East Bradenton. He had a history of heroin use. A small bag containing a white substance was recovered from the scene. A child called their uncle on Jan. 6 because their 30-year-old mother was unresponsive. When the uncle arrived, he found the woman dead with a needle in her arm. He placed the needle in a drawer so the children wouldn't see it. Crime scene technicians took the syringe as evidence. [continues 1302 words]
Inside Florida
