Tag: florida

Florida Lawmakers Approve Bills To Outlaw Psychedelic Mushroom Spores

Florida House and Senate panel have approved sweeping agriculture legislation that, among other changes, would explicitly outlaw the distribution of psychedelic mushroom spores and mycelium.

Members of the House Housing, Agriculture and Tourism Subcommittee voted at a hearing Tuesday to advance a bill, HB 651, from sponsor Rep. Kaylee Tuck (R). The nearly 150-page measure would make a variety of adjustments to Florida’s agricultural laws, including around agricultural lands, utilities and wildlife management.

With respect to psychedelics mushrooms, it would make it illegal “to transport, import, sell, offer for sale, furnish, or give away spores or mycelium capable of producing mushrooms or other material which will contain a controlled substance, including psilocybin or psilocyn, during its lifecycle.”

Violating the proposed law would be a first-degree misdemeanor, carrying a maximum of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

A companion bill, SB 700, which contains the same mushroom provisions, has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Keith Truenow (R). It was amended and approved unanimously last week by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Agriculture, Environment and General Government.

Prior to reporting the bill favorably on Tuesday, the House panel adopted a striking amendment that made a number of changes to the underlying bill, though the amendment did not substantively affect the provision dealing with spores and mycelium.

Psilocybin and psilocin are the two leading psychoactive compounds in psychedelic mushrooms. Although spores typically do not contain psilocybin or psilocin themselves, they eventually produce fruiting bodies—mushrooms—that do contain the psychedelic compounds.

Because the spores don’t contain any controlled substances, the federal government deems them legal.

“If the mushroom spores (or any other material) do not contain psilocybin or psilocin (or any other controlled substance or listed chemical), the material is considered not controlled,” Terrence Boos, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section chief, said in a memo last year. (Using a similar rationale, Boos has said that marijuana seeds are considered federally legal hemp because they themselves don’t contain THC.)

In Florida, a legislative report for HB 651 similarly notes that “spores do not contain any psilocybin properties themselves and therefore could be considered legal under current law.”

To prevent that, the proposal would clarify as illegal any spores or mycelium that could produce psilocybin or psilocin at any time in their development.

Members of the House panel did not mention the broad agriculture legislation’s psilocybin provisions during Tuesday’s hearing.

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Florida Man Busted by Secret Service and Local Authorities After Posting a Shocking Threat Against President Trump During Wild Social Media Rant

The United States government and the state of Florida are not messing around when it comes to demented individuals threatening the life of President Trump.

As WPBF reported, a 42-year-old Florida man from St. Lucie County was busted by both the Secret Service and sheriff’s deputies on Monday afternoon after posting a disturbing threat against Trump on social media during a wild social media rant.

Kendal Aaron Todd began his 80-second tirade by making a series of confusing accusations against Trump, including calling him the “Antichrist.”

“Because of Donald Trump, every single person in the world is cursed,” Todd begins. “Donald Trump is the Antichrist.”

“Donald Trump has personally made business decisions which have hurt so many different reincarnated Jesuses,” he adds.

Todd goes on to issue this shocking threat against the president, which calls his mental health further into question.

“Fight me naked to the death!” Todd said. “I’m going to cut you up with a chainsaw and put you in acid.”

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Florida Senate Panel Takes Up Bill To Restrict Hemp Products

For the third year in a row, Florida lawmakers have begun debating a proposal to regulate THC-derived hemp products, which have evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry in the Sunshine State.

In addition to banning Delta-8 products and restricting the amount of Delta-9 THC levels in hemp products to 5 milligrams per serving and 50 milligrams per package, the latest proposal from Polk County Republican Sen. Colleen Burton (SB 438) includes for the first time regulations on hemp-infused drinks, which have surged in popularity over the past year.

The proposal would restrict the amount of THC per bottle or cans to no more than 5 milligrams. It would ban those drinks being sold at any locations other than ones already licensed to sell alcoholic beverages, adding additional prohibitions and requirements.

“Liquor stores and restaurants that would like to sell these products, they have come to us and asked us to provide some regulations so that they know that the products that they are selling have gone through the rigor of the testing and will all be held to the same standards,” Burton said in introducing the bill to the Senate Agriculture Committee on Monday afternoon.

But that provision received some pushback.

“Requiring us to carry a liquor license when we’re a non-alcoholic bottle shop kind of goes against what we built,” said Caitlyn Smith, co-owner of Herban Flow in St. Petersburg, which bills itself as Florida’s first non-alcoholic bottle shop.

Her husband and co-founder, Michael Smith, said that he is five years’ sober and the last thing that he wants is for his store to be regulated as a liquor store when it isn’t one.

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Bill Lowering Minimum Age for Rifle Purchases Passes FL House Committee

Legislation to lower the minimum rifle purchase age from 21 to 18 passed a Florida House committee on Wednesday.

The legislation, House Bill 759, is sponsored by state Reps. Michelle Salzman (R) and Tyler Sirois (R).

The minimum age for rifle purchases was raised from 18 to 21 in the wake of the February 14, 2018, Parkland high school shooting, and many Republicans legislators in the state are ready to remove the restrictions on the Second Amendment rights of 18 to 20-year-olds.

Orlando Weekly quoted Gun Owners of America’s Luis Valdes speaking in support of HB 759: “As a father, I want my daughter to be armed when she’s under the age of 21 and she’s living outside of my house and she’s able to protect herself, because right now this [law] disarms women, disarms our college students, and disarms our children.”

State Rep. Dianna Hart (D) opposed HB 759, saying, “We say brains are not developed until you’re 25, but we want to hand 18-year-olds long guns.”

Hart did not mention that out nation gives hand grenades, fully automatic rifles, and other weapons to 18-year-olds who sign up for the military.

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MAGA Florida Homeowner Fined $60K for Massive Trump Banners Beats County in Lawsuit

A MAGA-loving Florida homeowner won a lawsuit against Walton County this month after racking up more than $60,000 in unpaid fines for hanging massive pro-Trump banners for several years on the side of his house on County Road 30A.

Walton County code compliance officials told homeowner Marvin Peavy that his various Trump banners violate the scenic corridor code after someone filed a complaint, WJHG reported. Peavy refused to take his banners down, and the county began fining him $50 daily for his displays. Peavy argued the county code violated his First Amendment rights. 

“Their laws cannot supersede my First Amendment right, so they came after my constitutional rights which they cannot do. It woke me up as a patriot,” Peavy told NewsChannel 7 in November. “I’m very happy that they came after me and I woke up, I’ve got great lawyers. We feel very good about what’s going on. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that you can have signs on your home. They cannot do anything about it.”

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Gov. DeSantis Seeks Permanent Ban On mRNA Vaccine Mandates And Other Restrictions

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey have called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for children, as well as for the state legislature to permanently prohibit mRNA mandates and to add vaccination status protections to the Patient’s Bill of Rights. 

“Guided by common sense and sound science, Florida has led the way in protecting patients’ rights. Now is the time to secure these protections and do even more to defend medical freedom,” said DeSantis (R-Fla.). “Let’s keep Florida the beacon of freedom in health care, where the rights of all patients are enshrined permanently in law.”

“Today, Governor DeSantis, Surgeon General Ladapo, and I called on the Florida Legislature to make permanent the prohibitions against the COVID mRNA vaccine mandate,” said First Lady Casey DeSantis. “Florida stood in the breach to protect people during COVID, now it’s time to make sure these protections last.”

“I am deeply grateful to Governor Ron and First Lady Casey DeSantis for continuing to put the needs and rights of Floridians first,” said State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo. “These proposals will strengthen the sovereignty of patients, and we look forward to advancing these issues with our federal partners at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”

The call to ban mRNA vaccine mandates by DeSantis is a law that already exists in the Sunshine State but is set to expire in June. 

DeSantis said he has no idea why the Legislature added an expiration date in the bill, but he is calling on lawmakers to extend the ban and make it permanent.

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FEMA fired three supervisors following probe into crew told to avoid Trump-supporting homes hit by Hurricane Milton

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has fired three more supervisors following an internal probe into claims a crew of disaster relief workers were told to avoid Trump-supporting homes hit by Hurricane Milton in Florida, The Post can exclusively reveal.

Cameron Hamilton, the current acting administrator of the agency, announced in a Tuesday letter to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) that an “exhaustive investigation” had concluded the supervisors failed to “meet our standards of conduct” or reign in their partisan underlings’ behavior.

“[I]t is essential that the entire workforce understand that this incident was reprehensible, and this type of behavior will not be tolerated at FEMA,” Hamilton wrote.

“Further, in accordance with my commitment, and that of President Trump and [Homeland Security] Secretary [Kristi] Noem, to ensure that Americans receive impartial assistance from FEMA, I have directed a comprehensive additional training for FEMA staff to reinforce that political affiliation should never be a consideration in the rendering of assistance.”

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‘Cody’s Law’: Florida Lawmakers Weigh First State Law to Compensate Vaccine Injury Victims

Florida lawmakers are considering a bill that would expedite the review and payment process for vaccine injury claims under the Medicare, Medicaid and Medicaid Medically Needy Programs.

If passed, “Cody’s Law: Florida No Vaccine-Injured Patient Left Behind” would be the first such law in the U.S. and could supplant federal vaccine injury compensation programs.

The bill, filed in the Florida House of Representatives in January and the Florida Senate last week, is named after Cody Hudson, a previously healthy college student who sustained serious — and now terminal — vaccine injuries in 2021.

Cody’s mother, Heather Hudson, advocated for and drafted the legislation. She said the law would fill the “gaps of all the vaccine injury compensation programs and Social Security disability.”

“It provides expedited claims processing, like is done for other severe and major illnesses, by Medicare and Medicaid, and affords the vaccine-injured and Emergency Use Authorization protocol-injured medical care at the onset of injury, when it is needed most,” Hudson said.

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Florida Bill Would Let People With Opioid Use Disorder Qualify For Medical Marijuana

A newly introduced bill in the Florida Senate would expand eligibility for the state’s medical marijuana program by adding as a qualifying condition “an addiction to or dependence on an opioid drug.”

The legislation, SB 778, was filed Monday by Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D). If enacted, it would take effect on July 1 of this year.

Current qualifying conditions for medical marijuana in Florida include cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, ALS, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, terminal conditions and chronic pain caused by a qualifying condition, according regulators at the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU).

The new bill has not yet been referred to a committee, according to the state Senate website.

Smith has in the past also filed legislation to legalize cannabis for adults, and last year he criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for spending the state’s opioid settlement funds on advertisements opposing Amendment 3, an industry-funded ballot measure that would have legalized adult-use cannabis in the state.

“Thousands of Floridians have died from opioid overdoses. ZERO Floridians have died from marijuana overdose,” he said on social media last October. “Yet DeSantis is spending MILLIONS of Florida’s opioid settlement money meant to fight the opioid crisis on his prohibitionist anti-freedom, anti-marijuana campaign.”

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Florida: Jewish Man Shoots Two Israelis ‘After Mistaking Them for Palestinians’

A Jewish man in Miami on Sunday shot two Israelis after “mistaking them for Palestinians” and yet the media is reporting on the incident as an “anti-Semitic attack.”

From NBC Miami, “Man faces attempted murder charges after shooting 2 in Miami Beach: Police”:

A man accused of shooting two people in Miami Beach was arrested on Sunday, police said.

Mordechai Brafman, 27, was charged with two counts of attempted second-degree murder.

Police said on Saturday, surveillance video in the 4800 block of Pine Tree captured Brafman’s car going southbound on Pine Road and then making a U-turn at 48th Street where a vehicle with two victims was stopped.

The arrest report said that Brafman drove past them and stopped directly in front of them.

Brafman then got out of his car, stayed near the driver’s side and started shooting the vehicle as it drove past him, the report said.

The victims’ vehicle, the report said, was shot 17 times and struck both people inside.

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