Category Archives: Drug Offenses
Beware Of The New Synthetic Cathinone In South Florida’s Drug Supply
Most Floridians have never heard of khat, a plant whose stimulant properties can be tapped by chewing the leaves; chewing khat has been a popular recreational activity in Yemen and parts of East Africa for centuries. The drug has never caught on in the United States, since cathinone, the active ingredient in khat, is… Read More »
Drug Sales To Undercover Cops Do Not Always Lead To An Immediate Arrest
In the movies, you often see undercover police officers buy drugs from a career drug dealer, or even from an everyman whose financial circumstances have gotten so bad that he is willing to sell his prescription ADHD pills, and as soon as the money and the drugs have changed hands, the police flash their… Read More »
Is It Legal To Own A Pill Press?
The identifying characteristic of drug paraphernalia is that it is an ordinary item that, by itself, is perfectly legal to own, but circumstances surrounding the police’s discovery of the item in your possession lead them to suspect that you are using it for the consumption, manufacture, or distribution of illegal drugs. A pipe is… Read More »
Clinical Trials For Medical LSD Are In Progress
If you smoked weed before or during the George W. Bush administration, then you remember a time when certain talkative stoners had a lot to say about the medicinal benefits of weed, and sometimes they could find people who agreed with them. The logic back then, which became a major impetus for the medical… Read More »
Undercover Police Buy Hallucinogens From Uber Driver
Many arrests for felony drug offenses, such as drug trafficking, occur as the result of undercover police operations. Confidential informants or undercover officers buy drugs from defendants on several occasions, usually after communicating with them by text message or secretly recording their phone conversations with the defendants. Once the police have enough evidence to… Read More »
What’s In Store For Florida Cannabis Laws In 2024?
It has been a long time since anyone has gotten arrested in Palm Beach County simply for having a small bag of weed in their pocket, but Florida continues to operate under a set of sometimes ambiguous and sometimes contradictory laws about cannabis. Those laws are always changing, as some legislators want to place… Read More »
The Entrapment Defense And Drug Cases
Defendants in criminal cases sometimes base their defenses on the concept of illegal search and seizure, a practice forbidden by the Fourth Amendment. In other words, they claim that they committed the crime, but the police had no right to catch them doing it. For example, this defense applies if a defendant had illegal… Read More »
Pink Cocaine Isn’t Cocaine, And It Isn’t Always Pink
There’s a new drug making an appearance in South Florida’s nightclubs, except that it is not all that new; the drug was first synthesized in 1974, which means that it is possible for you to be a full 20 years younger than the drug and still be too old to go to nightclubs. Meanwhile,… Read More »
Drug Possession Charges Are Much Worse When A Child Is Present
Drug possession with intent to sell is a much more serious charge than simple possession. When defendants get charged with possession with intent to sell, defense lawyers are sometimes able to arrange plea deals that reduce the charges to simple possession if the quantity of drugs found in the defendant’s residence or car was… Read More »
Will The Court Give You A Lighter Sentence Because Of Your Family Caregiving Obligations?
Artistic representations sometimes personify justice as a blindfolded woman, but when it comes to imposing sentences in criminal court, judges see the person, not just the crime. Some offenses have mandatory minimum sentences, but except for those requirements, judges have some leeway in determining the sentences of defendants who plead guilty or are convicted… Read More »
