The blond toddler pounced from the floor without warning and reached for a toy deep within Savannah Woods' entertainment center.

She remained on the plush, beige carpet, her eyes following the toddler through the room. In attempt to rein in the child's energy, Woods called him back to her side and asked him to name a smiling woman in the picture she held.

"Momma," the two-year-old said. The photograph captured Woods and her wife, Carly.

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'MOLLY'

Scientists, public health experts and volunteers working with them have started to show up at music festivals, concerts, raves and other public gatherings where illicit drugs are frequently used. Equipped with special chemical testing kits, they help attendees test pills and powder for purity in real time so people can make better informed decisions about whether to take them.

The practice - more common in Europe than in the United States - is controversial, and the debate has been similar to the early days of needle-exchange programs in the 1980s. Proponents argue harm reduction. They say people are more likely to reject taking drugs to get high if the substances do not contain what they think they do, which reduces the risk of overdose and other harmful effects. Critics say such programs implicitly encourage the use of illegal drugs.

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The medical marijuana industry officially has its guidelines with the passage of a bill out of the Florida Legislature on the last day of a three-day special session.

The votes were 29-6 in the Senate and 103-9 in the House. The few no votes were mostly Democrats who wanted fewer restrictions in the bill, but also a few Republicans who remain against the idea of medical marijuana on principle.

Gov. Rick Scott said he "absolutely" will sign the bill. That means big changes for patients, caregivers, doctors and growers, compared with the far more limited medical marijuana law passed by the Legislature in 2014, which resulted in seven grower/dispensers in the state.

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TALLAHASSEE -- Arguing that Florida legislators violated voters' intent when they prohibited smoking for the medical use of marijuana, the author of the state's medical marijuana amendment sued the state on Thursday to throw out the implementing law.

John Morgan, the Orlando trial lawyer who spearheaded and financed the successful campaign to make medical access to cannabis a constitutional right, filed the lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Court Thursday morning, asking the court to declare the law implementing the 2016 constitutional amendment unenforceable.

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TEMPLE TERRACE -- Dropping a giant joint in favor of the "USS Maryjane" seemed to smooth the waters for a pro-marijuana entry in this year's Temple Terrace Fourth of July Parade.

The new float designed by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws featured the flag-festooned ship crewed by some military veterans and painted with the slogan, "Hemp for Victory."

The theme plays off a World War II film from the Department of Agriculture that praised the nation's hemp farmers for their work in creating strong ropes from the stalks of marijuana plants for the armed forces.

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It was a miscarriage of dust-ice.

A handyman spent three months behind bars after cops believed they'd found cocaine sprinkled around his car -- until test results later proved it was clean, according to reports.

Karlos Cash, 57, says the white powder was actually drywall -- just as he'd been telling them all along.

"I know for a fact (that) it's drywall because I'm a handyman," he told WFTV Orlando. "I said that continuously during the arrest stop."

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Alfred LubranoWest Chester addiction psychologist Drew Alikakos dials a number for a local addiction treatment center that he suspects has been illicitly re-routed to a Florida facility. His own phone number was "hijacked" in such a manner.

Alfred Lubrano works for the enterprise team. Previously, he wrote about poverty, and before that, he was a feature writer and columnist.

Last September, West Chester addiction psychologist Drew Alikakos made a jarring discovery: His patients were disappearing.

Gallery:

Philly and Conrail to clean up 'heroin hellscape'

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A Florida teacher tipped off drug dealers that her detective husband was investigating them in order to get revenge for his alleged infidelity.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Wednesday that federal prosecutors want an eight-year sentence for 31-year-old Porsha Session, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to obstruction.

In 2013, Session searched her then-husband's work email and found information about a drug investigation. She says he was cheating on her, and that to get back at him, she used a co-worker's phone at the elementary school where she worked to call one of the dealers and alert him that an informant had infiltrated his group. The informant later killed himself.

Her attorneys are asking that she be sentenced to house arrest at her June 28 hearing.

[end]

Maybe it was the ski masks that did it.

Or it could have been the steely look in the eyes of Lake County, Fla., Sheriff Peyton Grinnell as he deadpanned: "We are coming for you. Run."

Perhaps it was the muted background music: an eerie melody that wouldn't have been out of place in a Batman movie.

In the end, what could have been an unremarkable public service announcement about opioid abuse in Lake County spread widely on the internet, garnering about a million views on the Facebook page of the sheriff's office, where it was first posted Friday. It sparked concerns about police militarization and drew more than a few comparisons to Islamic State recruitment videos.

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TAMPA -- Four years ago, Bree Morris faced a choice between pain relief and being close to family.

Permanently disabled from a car crash that injured her back, Morris, 53, moved from Florida to Colorado after voters here rejected a medical marijuana referendum in 2012. She left her children and grandchildren with a hunch that access to medical cannabis in Colorado would work better than the opiates that had turned her into a "zombie."

"From that day on, my quality of life changed," she said. "I started doing walks around the park. I started feeling better about life. I'm able to talk and be alert and do things and even go back to school to earn my bachelor's."

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Caption Davie imposes temporary moratorium on medical marijuana centers

Florida health officials have started the rules-making process that will expand those eligible to receive medical marijuana.

The Department of Health on Tuesday published the proposed rules and announced that public hearings will be held in five cities Feb. 6-9.

Patients with one of 10 medical conditions will be able to receive medical marijuana but it does not allow for more distributing organizations. There are currently seven licensed, with one more case under an administrative challenge.

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Dr. [name redacted], 50, of Parkland, was arrested Wednesday on prescription drug allegations at his Wilton Manors practice, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. (Sun Sentinel / Drug Enforcement Administration Handout)

A Broward doctor and his medical assistant were arrested on prescription drug charges Wednesday, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Dr. [name redacted], 50, of Parkland, was arrested after a six-month investigation that showed he illegally supplied methamphetamine to some of his patients at his Wilton Manors practice, authorities said. He is also accused of dispensing medically unnecessary prescriptions to use with the methamphetamine "to further enhance the patient's altered state of mind," agents wrote.

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TALLAHASSEE -- Even as the state prepares to carry out a constitutional amendment authorizing medical marijuana, a lack of guidance from health officials could create a "very murky and dangerous legal area" for patients and doctors.

Authors of the amendment, industry insiders and legislative leaders have called on the Department of Health to clarify what doctors and dispensing organizations can legally do under existing state laws and the voter-approved amendment that went into effect Tuesday.

To date, the health agency has remained mum, referring only to the language of the constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters in November and to state laws approved in 2014 and 2016.

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Officials were expecting the measure to go before the County Commission in February or March. But several things have changed since the county's Public Safety Coordinating Council passed a version of the bill in August, and officials from at least two of the county's cities are opposed to opting in should the county pass an ordinance. Matt Bruce @Matt_BruceDBNJ

It's been about five months since Flagler County leaders last discussed the prospect of a proposed countywide adult civil citation ordinance that could give law enforcement the discretion to cite rather than arrest people caught with small amounts of marijuana.

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[photo] Oxycodone pain pills.

It took a lot of convincing for John Evard to go to rehab. Seven days into his stay at the Las Vegas Recovery Center, the nausea and aching muscles of opioid withdrawal were finally beginning to fade.

"Any sweats?" a nurse asked him as she adjusted his blood pressure cuff. "Last night it was really bad, but not since I got up," replied Evard, 70, explaining that he'd awakened several times with his sheets drenched.

Even for him, it was hard to understand how he ended up 300 miles away from his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., at this bucolic facility in the suburbs of Vegas. "This is the absolute first time I ever had anything close to addiction," he said. He prefers to use the term "complex dependence" to describe his situation: "It was, shall we say, a big surprise when it happened to me."

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Dr. Joseph Dorn has had a unique vantage point when it comes to the burgeoning medical marijuana industry in Florida.

Dorn was the medical director of Surterra Therapeutics, which is one of the six dispensing organizations licensed to grow and distribute medical cannabis in the state. He resigned from that position two months ago and has opened a medical marijuana treatment center as Amendment 2 takes effect on Tuesday.

The constitutional amendment, which was approved by 71 percent of Florida voters, allows higher-strength marijuana to be used for a wider list of medical ailments. However, the true measure of what the amendment means won't be immediately seen until a new set of rules are adopted and implemented by the Florida Legislature and the Department of Health.

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Kudos for pot vote

Mayor Buddy Dyer and the city of Orlando recently passed, 4-3, the initial vote to deprioritize arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana. I'm thankful for Dyer and Commissioners Regina Hill, Patty Sheehan and Robert Stuart for their support of the ordinance. I, unfortunately, left the City Council meeting feeling disappointed in Commissioner Samuel Ings for voting against it.

We live in a society where young black men and boys have been a target of the war on drugs. Ings argues that this policy would tarnish the image of Orlando as a family vacation destination.

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