ABC News has now picked up on the story in Florida about Rachel Hoffman, the young woman murdered after Tallahassee police inserted her into a dangerous undercover drug sting.  More details have been uncovered, such as the discovery of over five ounces of marijuana at Hoffman’s home, along with scales and baggies.

ABC News: Cops Pressed to Explain Dead Informant
In addition to the 2007 drug charge, authorities also released information about an underage drinking charge Hoffman faced in 2003, as well as multiple instances in which she was targeted by thieves — crimes he said are often related to drugs.

“They’re basically pointing the finger at Rachel,” said [defense attorney Johnny] Devine, who served as Hoffman’s attorney after the 2007 bust, in an interview with ABC News. “What does her underage drinking charge have anything to do with what happened to her?”

[Devine] wanted to know why, as her attorney, he did not know about this offer from police — something McCranie said was not uncommon.

“They’re asking her to do something that would put her in a life or death situation,” Devine said. “I have never had any time where the police department has not called me to tell me this is what’s happening.”

Further, Devine said, Hoffman did not have any previous experience with firearms, but authorities knew from the terms of the deal that she would be confronted by a pair of men — one of whom had a violent criminal past — who were carrying at least one gun.

“She had never worked as an undercover agent,” he said. “She had no experience or training in this matter.”

Finally, Hoffman challenged police reluctance to at least share with her family members some details from the murder scene to allow them to grieve.

“They are left to speculate and guess about the cause of her death,” he said. “Was she tortured? Was she beaten?”

While the police continue to defend the decisions that drew Hoffman into her role as an informant, even William “Willie” Meggs, the state’s attorney in Tallahassee who will ultimately prosecute Green and Bradshaw, said that his office should have known about the April raid at Hoffman’s apartment and her subsequent deal with authorities.

“We would have liked to have known and we did not,” Meggs told ABC News, stressing that as a participant in the drug court, Hoffman already had a relationship with a case worker in the program and should not have any kind of drug interaction involving police without his office knowing.

The police continue to play “blame the victim”, saying that what killed Hoffman was two murderers and her “drug lifestyle”.  But Hoffman was only involved in small amounts of marijuana and was never involved with guns, so to send her on a drug buy for 1500 ecstasy pills, two ounces of coke, and a handgun was completely out of her character.  This is not the kind of nuance that is lost on hard-core drug dealers, especially when you have been recently released from police custody and you ask to meet them in a public place.

“Minister Of Marijuana” Says It’s His Religion To Use Pot - News Story - WFTV Orlando
PALM BAY, Fla. — A self-proclaimed “minister of marijuana” says pot is his religion and he has every right to use it. Cops disagree and busted him while pulling 100 plants out of his house.

Steven Swalick doesn’t use terms like “pot” or even “marijuana.” Those terms appeared to upset him during a jailhouse interview. He admitted to using cannabis and even growing it but says it was for his religion. And he wanted only to be addressed as the “Reverend.”

The 56-year-old Swalick claims he has practiced a religious belief that requires the use of cannabis since he was 15-years-old. He claims to be an ordained minister. He calls his home a sanctuary of sorts for a religion called the “Hawaiian Cannabis Ministries.”

The Palm Bay police department’s SWAT team raided Swallick’s home, Wednesday afternoon, seizing 107 plants, along with all sorts of equipment used to grow and harvest them. Police say it would be worth $100,000 on the streets.

Swalick said it wasn’t being sold, but rather grown for religious ceremonies.

Steven Swalick - Florida cannabis minister

When the word “marijuana” was used, he became upset.

“We do not use that word,” he said. “Please forgive me and I’ll apologize for you. The word is cannabis. It’s the holy sacrament recognized by the Bible.”

Swalick now faces felony drug charges, which he believes will eventually be cleared under constitutional religious protections.

“I can not be convicted by man. I answer to the Lord,” he said.

Bond was set at $20,000.

Gee, doesn’t the very first page of the Christian Bible say, “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”  There are many references to cannabis — or “kaneh bosm” in the original Hebrew — as the main ingredient in the anointing oil used by Jesus Christ.

I’m not a religious person myself (I think you don’t need God’s permission to smoke herb, I believe it is a secular Constitutional privacy issue), but I’m a huge supporter of First Amendment rights to practice the religion of your choosing.

Swalick notes the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law by President Clinton in 1993.  It has been used to protect the rights of sincere religious practitioners to use ayahusca tea and peyote, both strong hallucinogens that are considered illegal drugs.

That same Act that should protect religious use of cannabis, yet the courts will not let such a case go to trial and set that precedent.  Eddy Lepp was set free after feds raided his gardens and confiscated over 32,000 plants.  They were very intent on locking him up and throwing away the key.  But once he raised a defense using the RFRA, they suddenly backed down and dropped the charges based on technicalities with the search warrant.

Bill headed to Crist would bring stiffer penalties for marijuana grow houses
Running an indoor grow house to cultivate marijuana would bring stiffer penalties under a bill now heading to [Florida] Governor Crist’s desk.

The legislation would make it a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison to own a house where marijuana is being cultivated, packaged and distributed.

The bill would also reduce the number of marijuana plants that would have to be in a home for a person to be convicted of a second-degree felony, which would be punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Right now, a person would have to have 300 plants in their home to be convicted of a second-degree felony, but the bill would reduce that number to 25.

In addition, if a child was living in the home, a person could spend up to 30 years in prison.

The Senate unanimously passed the bill today. It passed the House last month.

I think this is a bill they haven’t really put much thought into.  Suppose you are a Florida landlord and you rent your property out to someone who then grows a single marijuana plant for personal uses.  As the owner of the home, are you now headed to five years in prison?  If your renter grows 25, are you sent up for 15 years?  If your renter has kids, are you going to prison for 30 years?

Think about the consequences of this.  The rental market is tight already and landlords are always having trouble finding good tenants.  What will landlords do to protect themselves from the potential grower/renter?  Will landlords, in addition to criminal background checks they already perform, now be insisting on pre-rental and random drug testing of their renters?  Will they be forced to perform those 24-hour notice rental inspections?

And what of the people trying to rent?  If you had made a mistake in your youth and got busted with marijuana, how likely are landlords going to want to rent to you?  I believe this will create even more homeless people in Florida, as those people on the margins economically who have drug convictions in the past are rejected for rentals.

Fla. Teens Believe Drinking Bleach Will Prevent HIV - Orlando News Story - WKMG Orlando
ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida teens who believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy have prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.Another myth is that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.

State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida’s abstinence-only sex education.

They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said.

It would still require teaching abstinence but students would also learn about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.

The bill just passed its first vote in a committee.

This is the natural consequence of not providing teens with responsible factual information about sex and drugs.

Abstinence-only sex education is the “Just Say No” approach to teen sexual health, and we all know how well “Just Say No” got everyone to stop using drugs. It’s like a prohibition of biological facts. And for years we’ve told kids reefer madness lies like smoking pot will cause infertility (which, of course, is why there are no Rastafarian babies, right?  One of my good friends and member of Oregon NORML sent this photo of the results he and his wife achieved last week after years of extensive, er, research into marijuana/fertility argument.)  So when we tell them lies about marijuana and withhold the truth about birth control, is the belief that smoking pot prevents pregnancy that surprising?

Some parents will complain that sex education belongs at home.  That’s a laudable goal, but completely unrealistic.  Not every child benefits from a loving, stable home with forthright parents ready to dish about the birds and the bees.  So it is more realistic to teach teens about the biological facts about sex and the proper ways to remain healthy.  Yes, sexual abstinence at a young age is morally preferable for some and definitely the safest way to prevent pregnancy and STDs, but should a teen who does decide to act on those powerful adolescent hormones deserve an unwanted pregnancy or a death sentence due to ignorance?

Similarly, while we all agree that we’d prefer teens to not smoke marijuana, the fact is that some will, whether it is illegal or not.  So should we provide them with the facts, or should we allow their drug ignorance to spill over into sexual ignorance?

Both issues come down to frightened adults not wanting to “send the wrong message” to young people.  They fear if we tell kids about condoms and birth control and that marijuana use isn’t so awful and can be medicinal that we will encourage such behaviors by kids.  Instead, the message we send through abstinence and prohibition is that pregnancy and STDs and marijuana use and abuse are so dreadful that if you have sex and smoke pot, you deserve whatever bad consequence results from your ignorant actions.

The Associated Press: Is Salvia the Next Marijuana?
[Salvia divinorum, a botanical cousin of the mint plant] is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana. Eight states have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including Florida, are considering a ban or have previously.

“As soon as we make one drug illegal, kids start looking around for other drugs they can buy legally. This is just the next one,” said Florida state Rep. Mary Brandenburg, who has introduced a bill to make possession of salvia a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Some say legislators are overreacting to a minor problem, but no one disputes that the plant impairs judgment and the ability to drive.

Native to Mexico and still grown there, salvia divinorum is generally smoked but can also be chewed or made into a tea and drunk.

Called nicknames like Sally-D, Magic Mint and Diviner’s Sage, salvia is a hallucinogen that gives users an out-of-body sense of traveling through time and space or merging with inanimate objects. Unlike hallucinogens like LSD or PCP, however, salvia’s effects last for a shorter time, generally up to an hour.

I don’t think salvia is going to become “the next marijuana”.  Part of what makes marijuana popular is that it is pleasant and mild compared to other drugs.  Also, fewer people like the disconnect from reality that one gets from stronger psychedelics.  Finally, getting high on salvia takes some sacrifice; the stuff tastes awful and its effects aren’t very reliable from episode to episode.

Er… so I’ve heard.