A new law went into effect on July 1, 2013 that did not garner a lot of attention. The new law, Florida Statutes Section 893.195, makes it a crime to sell drug paraphernalia. Now I know what you are thinking. That is a good law. We don’t want people selling needles to our kids, right. However, there are a lot of things on the list that can be used for perfectly legal purposes. Here are just a few of the banned items:
Blenders, bowls, containers, spoons, balloons, duct tape and mixing devices used, intended for use, or designed for use in compounding controlled substances.
How do the police know if I am using my balloon for my kids party or to do a whip it? Yes, the law was designed to put the “head shops” out of business, but to what end. Lets face it, there is not a single drug user on the planet that will quit using drugs because they can’t buy their favorite bong or crack pipe. A 3 year old can figure out how to ingest drugs by googling it an about 10 seconds.
Thus, the real reason why this law was passed was two fold. First, it is very popular among politicians to appear hard on crime. To that end, they passed a law that does nothing to help the drug problem, but now requires people to smoke pot from joints and soda cans instead of pretty bongs. Second, it is an attempt to prempt the coming medical marijuana laws heading our way.
A few weeks ago, over 100,000 signatures were sent to the Florida Supreme Court. The people behind the petition are trying to get a Medical Marijuana issue placed on the ballot in 2014 in Florida. There are 14 states that already have medical marijuana laws and several others in the process of approving them. Because very few politicians have any incentive to push through this kind of legislation, the people of the state have been forced to get it on the ballot and let the voters decide. Thus, the politicians that supported making bowls illegal to sell can stand up and tell their voters that they voted to ban drugs by trying to shut down the stores that sell drug paraphernalia. Of course this is all nonsense and just politics as usual, but that’s the way it is in Tallahassee.
As for my cannabis smoking clients, remember a few things. First, don’t ever smoke week in your car. You are sure to get busted. It is still a first degree misdemeanor in the State of Florida if you get caught with under 20 grams of cannabis. The good news is that we have handled thousands of these cases and none of our clients have gone to jail. In most cases, we can get the case resolved with a fine and no conviction. So if you get a ticket for possession of cannabis, or any other traffic ticket, please call us ASAP for your free consultation.
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