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A Bradenton woman who says her suffering from ALS disease is decreased because of smokable medical marijuana gets her day in court tomorrow. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, she and other plaintiffs are challenging the states ban on smokable medicine.

As lawmaker debated the rules for medical marijuana, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri was adamant.

“We don’t think there should be smokable marijuana” Gualtieri told lawmakers in January 2017.

Fast forward five months, and John Morgan, the man who bankrolled the amendment, filed his no smoke is a joke law suit. He argues people knew what they wanted.

“The vast majority, if not one hundred percent knew that smoke was included” Morgan told reporters.

The Constitutional amendment mentions smoking just once. It says smoking can’t be in public. In a January hearing, advocates argued that means it can be smoked in private.

Jon Mills is the Amendment Two Author. “There’s no question that  the definition of marijuana in this constitutional provision includes smokable marijuana.”

The state says otherwise. Rebecca Nordby was the attorney for the Department of Health. 

“There is no express requirement that smoking medical marijuana has to be allowed.”

Plaintiff Cathy Jordan and her husband Robert say that smoking marijuana has kept her ALS at bay for more than twenty years.”, “Noticeable difference” Robert told uswhen it cae to vaping or edibles.

Jeff Sharkey of the Medical Marijuana Business Association says it will likely come down to what doctors recommend.

“If the amendment didn’t say it was prohibited, then implicitly, it’s allowed.”

The same judge in this case recently ruled that a Tampa man could grow his own marijuana based on a doctor’s recommendation. The state opposed that, just as it opposes this.

And no matter how the judge rules, the loser is likely to appeal.

What do a parking garage for State Senators and substance abuse treatment programs have in common. Nothing, except as Mike Vasilinda tells us, the state is choosing one over the other.

28 million dollars in repairs to this parking garage for state senators and their staff are nearly complete.  The underground parking garage holds 210 cars…so the cost: One hundred thirty three thousand dollars per space. 

And just across the street, this parking garage, with room for a hundred cars, sits virtually empty.”

The spending is taking place as the Department of Corrections is cutting a like amount… 29 million, from substance abuse treatment. The cuts will close some programs and send some offenders to prison. 

Mark Fontaine is the Executive Director of the FL Alcohol and Drug Abuse Assn.

“And every community will be affected. Drug courts in particular. Veterans courts will lose very..well, will have a greatly diminished option” says Fontaine, a 40 year veteran in the fight against drugs.

DOC says the cuts are needed to fund inmate health care.

“Mental health is health care, but substance abuse is not. They are drawing a distinction. We don’t think there is a distinction” says Fontaine.

Q:” This is health care?”

“This is health care.”

State lawmakers could make budget amendments to save the programs before the cuts take effect a week from Friday, but so far, they aren’t budging. The treatment programs make up just one and a half percent of DOC’s 2.4 billion dollar budget.

“Its hard to imagine in a budget that you can’t find one point five percent” says Fontaine.

Senators say they will deal with the substance abuse funding in the fall or spring, But by then it may be too late for some of the programs to survive, and some receiving treatment will be behind bars.

The parking garage repairs were necessary for safety, but constructing  new, above ground parking would have cost less than half as much. The Drug Abuse Association’s Fontaine did not respond to a direct question about drug treatment being less of a priority than underground parking for elected officials. 

Hundreds of candidates have until midnight to report their monthly fundraising totals. Gubernatorial candidates will be reporting six and seven figure numbers, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, one thirty year Capitol veteran is hoping for just a few thousand.

Tony Knox has shined the shoes of six of the last seven governors. 

“I started with Governor Martinez” he told us as we walked past portraits outside the Governor’s Office. 

He’s hoping to add another to the list after November, when he shines his own shoes. Knox filed the paperwork to run a year go this week.

“Why?”

“It’s time for a change”

He’s been shining shoes in the Capital City for 30 years

“Can you start a business with a hundred dollars right now?” He asked me. 

Q: “Because you did?”

“Yes. I started with five dollars and fifty-six cents.”

All the while supporting a wife and 8 kids.

“We have 8 out of high school. We have three out of college, and we have three in college.”

His politics are conservative.

“No more food stamps. Unless you are a senior citizen, handicapped, disabled, or working.”

Tony Knox knows he’s a real long shot, and he says if he’s not at the top of the heap when the ballots are counted November 6th, Florida will get what it deserves.

“It’s any given Sunday on the football field. Any given election, a man can win” says Knox.

And his slogan?

Q:” Donald trump wants to make America great again. You want to do what?”

“Make Florida shine again.”

If lightening does strike and he is elected…the first thing we would do is convene all the former Governor’s to be his advisors.

Next week Tony Knox hits the road,  down one coast and up the other to raise at least six thousand dollars to pay his qualifying fee. It’s due in mid June.

The case of a Duck hunter gone missing 17 years in North Florida has taken a new twist. His widow and best friend have long been suspects, and  As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the case appears to have come together after their relationship fractured.

Mike Williams loved to hunt. So when he went missing just before Christmas in 2000, it was investigated as an accident. Co-Worker Brett Ketcham. 

“We just assumed there was an accident in the lake”Ketcham told us.

Suspicions grew when no body was found. Williams was quickly declared dead, life insurance policies were cashed in.  And  within five years the widow and best friend, brian Winchester, married.

“And I know I deserve punishment” Winchester told a court in December.

The marriage unraveled completely after the best friend turned husband kidnapped Denise Williams in 2016. She asked a judge to jail him for life.

“It comes down to my life or his” she said at the time. 

Now Denise Williams has been indicted on first degree murder charges, conspiracy to murder and being an accessory after the fact.

“These are all punishable by life offenses” a judge told her during a first appearance.

She’s being held without bond. Ethan Way, her attorney, calls the charges “fiction”.

“Were gonna fight it and we’re gonna get acquitted.”

Q: “and he flipped?”

“I don’t know what he flipped. I think he made something up. There’s a  big difference because flipping and fiction.”

But Prosecutor Joh Fuchs says the defense doesn’t know what they know.

“To make comments on what the evidence is or is not is premature” Fuchs s told reporters. 

Mike Williams body was found at Lake Carr, not too far from the state Capitol, but 50 miles from where the grand jury says he was killed.

Co-worker Ketcham, says the arrest validates most people’s suspicions.

“I think we saw this day coming”

Q:It took a long time, though?”

“Absolutely.”

When asked if Brian Winchester would be indicted, Prosecutor Jon Fuchs had few words. “No comment.

Brian Winchester, the new husband is serving a 20 year sentence for kidnapping Denise Williams. This afternoon, the state opened an investigation to determine if the death was part of a scheme to fraudulently profit from his life insurance policies. More than 2 million was reportedly paid to the widow.

A panel of 15 FSU faculty, staff, students and alumni has voted to relocate a statute of a former slave owner who played a a role in providing the land for the University.  As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the panel is also recommending renaming two buildings.

The statue of Frances Epps, A grandson of Thomas Jefferson,  sits prominently to the right of Wescott Hall…the main administration building for Florida State.  Jefferson’s grandson helped gain the land the school sits on. A plaque inaccurately calls him the founder of the University.

“There is no one founder for Florida State University. He was on a couple of committee’s” says Students for a Democratic Society spokesman Maddie Hendrick. 

Now, a 15 member panel is recommending the Epps statue be moved , and the building behind the statue named for Epps be renamed.  The Students for a Democratic Society pushed for the change.

“He was particularly especially brutal, especially racist, especially pro slavery” says Hendrick.

In October 2016 a vote to get rid of Frances’s Epps statue failed. Miserably. Seventy-thirty.”

The panel is also recommending the FSU law school, named for former Florida Chief Justice BK Roberts, also be renamed. Roberts was instrumental in keeping Virgil Hawkins,  a black man from attending the law school at the University of Florida.   

FSU Alum Andre Gordon see’s both sides.

“A lot of the land here, was probably…probably had slaves on it. So I don’t know, are we going to remove everything” Asks Gordon.

Renaming the law school would require a vote of the legislature. The fate of the statute and Epps Hall are now in the hands of FSU President John Thrasher. He’s promised a decision sometime this summer.

Nearly 63 Hundred FSU students, about 11 percent of the student body, voted to keep the statue during the October 2016 referendum. New information on the lack of Epps role in founding the University has recently come to light.