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Florida’s police chiefs, sheriffs and the highway patrol spent the morning telling lawmakers about safeguards they would like to see in medical marijuana legislation. Those rules range from local zoning control to packaging to having access to who has been prescribed marijuana.

If you are stopped by police and they find pot that’s been prescribed to you legally, they want to verify that quickly. Today, the states major law enforcement organizations asked lawmakers to make sure they have access to who can consume legal marijuana. and they want restrictions on edibles.

Miami Beach Police Chief Daniel Oates was in Colorado when medical marijuana ramped up in 2009.

“Law enforcement wasn’t able to determine who was lawfully in possession of marijuana” he told lawmakers.

One suggestion was to require patients to carry a card identifying themselves. Another was to require medical marijuana be kept n the package it came in.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri drew a parallel to people caught driving high under the influence  of legally prescribed medications.

“Just because you have a certification for medical marijuana, you still can’t drive under the influence” says the Sheriff.

Lawmakers also asked Andrew Freeman, a former Colorado official, about people showing up to work stoned.

“We did not get feedback from employers that that changed all that much” he said.

A bill already introduced would allow police to take blood samples if they think you’re driving stoned.

But patient advocates, like Jodi James from the Fl Cannabis Action Network call the idea of testing for pot intoxication unworkable.

If you are routinely using high levels of TCH, you blood level is going to be very high and your intoxication level is likely to be very low.”

Law enforcement also suggested limiting medical marijuana to just Florida residents, saying they want to prevent marijuana tourism.

Colorado officials also suggested Florida ramp up a marijuana education program for teens and young adults before medical marijuana becomes more widespread.

The state rested its case today in the trial of a well know podiatrist. He’s on trial in the state Capitol for killing his wife, a former french model. Before resting, the state called a former cell mate, Dale Folsom, who spent months with Frasch in a jail cell. Folsom testified Frasch admitted hitting his wife with a gold club.

“And what happened after he hit her in the head with a golf club?” asked prosecutor Georgia Cappleman.

Folsom responded: “She feel and he said he checked on her a little bit later, realized what happened, saying he didn’t mean  to kill her. He was upset when he told me, but said he didn’t mean to kill her. Just happened and he got scared and ran. Through her in the pool and ran.”

Samira Frasch’s DNA was found on a golf club. Folsom has multiple convictions for cashing bad checks. defense attorneys say he reward for testifying was getting out of jail.

91 people die of heroin or opioid abuse every day in the US, ten of them in Florida. Officials call it an epidemic and are pushing lawmakers for more money for treatment. James Crutchfield, the chief of Manatee County Paramedicine told reporters the county is the epicenter of the epidemic.

“EMS has responded to heroin overdose twenty times last year. in our county, we’ve had a 670 percent increase in the use of Narcan since 2013, and last year alone we administered 2,504 doses of Narcan, costing well over two hundred thousand dollar for the county taxpayers” says the EMS chief.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri says he office will keep arresting those dealing, but arresting users is a waste of time.

“It serves no purpose to jail the users. those are the people who need help, and we want to make sure they can get that help” says Gualtieri. “And through organizations like NOPE, Narcotics overdose Prevention Education, the other organizations, we want to make sure they get all the resources they need because that’s where we’re going to make a difference with this problem.”

Heroin now accounts for half of all drug deaths in Florida. Usage increased after the state dried up the pill mill market,

For the fourth year in a row, big chain stores like Walmart and Target want lawmakers to let them sell alcoholic beverages in the same stores as groceries and everything else. Currently, liquor must be sold in a separate walled location, usually right next door.  Julio Fuentes, the Chairman of the FL Hispanic Chamber of Commerce says the wall requirement puts retailers at a disadvantage.

“You can walk into any store right now, any store that sells alcohol, and purchase some, but obviously, the separation of the food and the liquor is out dated and that’s exactly what we want to do with this bill” says Fuentes.

Publix and most liquor only retailers oppose the change.

Calling themselves the guardians of the Glades, 20 African Americans living south of Lake Okeechobee came to the Capitol today to fight a plan to turn 60 thousand acres of sugar farmland into a water reservoir. The plan is the brainchild of the Senate President. He believes the water recharging area would prevent discharges that are harming water ways on both the east and west coast. But spokes person Tammy Jackson-Moore says the plan costs too many jobs.

“if the state is successful in purchasing this 60 thousand acres, we’re talking about the closure of yet another sugar mill in the Belgrade area.  that sugar mill employee 600 people. when we’re talking about 600 people, we’re talking about thousands of family members. we’re also talking about the potential local businesses going out of business because they don’t have people in the area to support those businesses” says Jackson.

Big sugar is also against being forced to sell the land. Dozens of others showed up at a committee hearing to push for the land purchases.

In the last three years, the State of Florida has spent 41 million dollars on outside legal fees fighting the state of Georgia over water and the lack of it flowing into Apalachicola Bay. Another six point two million was spent on expert witnesses.  The Department of Environmental Protection is asking for 17 million more, but lawmakers are balking.

Since 2001, Florida has spent 72 million dollars fighting Georgia and Alabama over the fresh water that flows from this damn north of Atlanta to the ouster beds in Apalachicola.

“It’s highly complex specialized litigation” says Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Legal Costs have skyrockets since 2015. that’s when the state filed a new lawsuit and the Attorney General opted to use outside law firms because of the cases complexities.

“And they are doing an excellent job” says the Attorney General, asking and answering “Are the fees astronomical? Absolutely, but this is money that is owed to them.”

The legal bills are being paid by the Department of Environmental Protection.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Jack Latvala (R-Clearwater) says the suit is important, but “Whether it has been properly monitored is the question.” Latvala believes it has not been properly monitored.

When asked,, Governor Rick Scott pointed out how important adequate fresh water is to the people who make their living on Apalachicola Bay.

“Unfortunately, the only way we’re going to get is resolved is going to the Supreme Court” says Scott. “It’s important to our state. The flow of water into our state is very important.”

Everyone here  says, yes, the payments were excessive, but no one is saying they weren’t necessary, and the question is, what happens next?”

House Budget Chairman Carlos Trujillo says lawmakers are still looking for an answer.

Q:”How did it get so out of hand“ we asked.

“We’re still in the process of figuring that out” says the budget chairman. 

DEP has been asking for another 17 million dollars to fund the lawsuit for the rest of this year. right now, that is on hold.

Today was the deadline for the Florida and Georgia to submit proposals to a special master hearing the case for the US Supreme Court. The two states made their case in a weeklong hearing in December.

More than 70 cities and counties have already banned fracking. .Now, for the first time, a bi-partisan coalition of Republican and Democratic lawmakers are pushing the envelope, calling on an outright statewide ban on any time of fracking to extract oil and gas reserves. State Senator Dana Young of Tampa filed the legislation this morning.

“As a sixth generation Floridian and an avid outdoorsman, I believe we must act quickly and decisively to protect our fragile environment from incompatible practices.”

Co-Sponsor Sen. Keith Perry (R-Gainesville) told reporters to think of the future.

“What we do today is not for us, but for the next generation, and this kind of legislation protects the natural environment we all enjoy and we need to save that generators and that should be one of our top priorities” says Perry.

Florida is home to more class one springs than any other state. Sponsors also sited the need to protect Florida’s tourism industry from practices that harm the environment. The filing was applauded by most major environmental groups.

Governor Rick Scott fought Obamacare before and during his first term as Governor, losing a lawsuit at the US Supreme Court. Now, with Donald Trump on speed dial, Scott plans to spend the next year continuing the fight.

“At the Federal level, I’m going to work with Congressman Price and the Trump administration to repeal and replace Obamacare, come up with a system that taxpayers can afford, people can afford, companies can afford” Scott told reporters, “We truly have to have access to quality health care. At the state level, as you know,I’ve been fighting to make sure people know what things cost.  It’s not fair that people don’t know what things cost.”

Scott, a former health care executive, would establish a system that requires hospitals to publish their fees for procedures and medications.

Promising that the people of Florida will hear if she is taking a job in Washington before the rest of the nation,  Attorney General Pam Bondi sounded today like someone who plans to finish her remaining two years in office. She had been widely rumored to have been offered a job in the Trump administration and met with Trump in early December.

“Right now, I’m very happy being Attorney General, and that’s not saying I’m leaving. I’m very happy. I love helping people and the next two years, that’s what I want to ficus nonpositive things and helping people” Says Bondi.

Bondi’s prime focus is combatting human trafficking. She mounted an effort to alert people at the national College football championship in tampa and is working on a plan for the same information to be disseminated at the SuperBowl.

Employers would have to pay women and men doing the same work equally under legislation filed today in the state Capitol. Studies show that currently in the state, women make 87 cents for every dollar paid a man. That’s higher than the national average, but Sponsor Linda Stewart of Orlando says thats because so many people work for minimum wage in Florida,

“When we steal from half our work force every hour they work, it impacts all of us. What do we say to the single mother working two jobs who can’t afford to send her children to a day care that prepares them for kindergarten?“ asks Stewart.

Rep. Janet Cruz (D-Tampa) was more blunt.  “Now, dammit. it’s time women get recognized for equal pay for equal work.; How much more simple does it get?”Asking that your daughters  and your mothers and your sisters make the same amount of money as the co worker who sits in the cubicle next to them“ says Cruz, the House Democratic Leader.

The legislation has been filed in years past and never gotten a hearing. Sponsors say new bi-partisan ship in the state House may make a difference this year.

Last year, 0nearly 20 thousand teens were stopped for misdemeanor violations, just fewer than half got civil citations, which means no record at all if the teen completes community service and other sanctions. But the rate caries from county to county. In Pinellas cCounty, 96 percent get a citation, while across the bridge in Hillsborough County, just 34 percent are diverted. Legislation would make citations mandatory for first time offenders. Sponsor Sen. Anitere Flores says it is a matter of fairness.
“Many times we talk about justice being blind. Unfortunately in many of these situations, not only is justice not blind but it is not fair across the state, and what we want to do is bring fairness to this issue” says Flores.

Police agencies are balking at the idea of being told they must issue a civil citation, saying they want discretion on the street. But House Co Sponsor Larry Ahern of St. Pete says the citations save money.

“Civil citations save our state money. We save 4,500 for each child who receives a civil citation rather an an arrest.  Our state could have saved 45 million dollars last year if all eligible children received a civil citation” says Ahern.

Sponsors say studies have also shown that whites get civil citations more often than blacks and hispanics in some counties. the Legislation cleared its first Senate committee this week.

Sex, guns, strippers and illegitimate children are all part of the allegations against the high profile defendant who is on trial in the State capitol this week for the alleged murder of this wife, who was a French model grooming her own children to be celebrities in their own right.

Samira Frasch was obsessed with dressing her daughters beyond their years. The former French model met her husband Adam Frasch during fashion week in Paris. Three years later, in 2009, they married. Fast forward five years. She had filed for divorce by the time her body was found floating in their upscale home’s  pool.

Here husband is facing first degree murder charges. Prosecutor Georgia Cappleman chose not

to seek the death penalty.

“I reviewed the case for the potential of the death penalty and thought the aggregators were not present, so I did not seek it,” says the veteran prosecutor.

Dateline and other major network news programs are following every nuance of the soon to be made for TV show. During a break in the trial, we asked the defendant

”Adam, how do you feel going into today?”

He responded “Fine.”

Defense attorneys say the case is circumstantial, but wouldn’t elaborate during a break.

“No comment” resp[onded Clyde Taylor to our question.

Adam Frasch claims the couple were reconciling, and that he spent the night before she died  with his wife.

Samira’s body was found several hours after Adam Frasch took the children to a home in Panama City. He was loading them into his car when police arrived and arrested him.

Only a dozen of the fist 50 jurors called said they knew about the case, even though it has been front page news and led the six pm newscasts here in the state capitol.

The trial is expected to last all week, with most of the witnesses coming from the ranks of law enforcement.

Defense attorneys told jurors today that the state can not prove Adam Frasch was in the same town when the murder was committed.

A former congressman, a Jacksonville City Councilman, and other elected officials are voicing concerns over the proposed purchase of 60 thousand acres in the Everglades,to build a reservoir for water filtration. Congressman Steve Southerland says the plan takes too much money out of the budget and will hurt other parts of the state.

“If you look at the budget dollars that will be used to fund this plan, it takes money from North and North Central Florida” says Southerland. “If you look at the conservation dollars by this graph right here, you look at the money that goes to South Florida, how much is enough?

The land purchase is designed to stop water discharges from Lake Okeechobee which ar polluting sensitive water ways to the east and west of the lake. The plan is a key priority of the new Senate President.

About sixty people carrying signs stood on the steps of the old State Capitol today to protest the Sabal Trail Pipeline under constriction north central Florida. They fear the petroleum the pipeline will carry will pollute water supplies. John Quarterman of the Suwanee Riverkeepers says they also hope to get the attention of state regulators, who they say aren’t doing their job.

“We need the public against this. There are many ways,a s I mentioned, that it can still be stopped and we need to stop it. One thing is their permit violations because they’re making them. A frack out, a sinkhole, there’s all sorts of things. Fine them.”

The pipeline, when finished, would move one billion cubic feet of gas to Florida,

The killer weekend storm that left people dead in Mississippi and Georgia also left 34 thousand without power in the state Capitol. .Seven to ten thousand woke this morning still without power, Dozens of homes were damaged by falling trees. We found Tallahassee homeowner Dennis Michael Murphy cutting a large pine tree into pieces after it had fallen and blocked the road in front of his house.

“It was breezy and my neighbors did witness the tree fall. and fortunately it did not hit my house and cause any other property damage” says the thankful homeowner.

Most people have now had their power restored in the Capital city, where the mayor says lessons were learned after Hurricane Hermine left many without power for a week back in September.