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Most sensible Americans these days believe in ending the War on Drugs. The facts are clear that low-level drug arrests ruin lives and tear families apart. Some day, selling weed in Florida will no longer feed thousands of new prisoners into the state’s broken criminal justiceBus system.

But that day has not yet come, and until ganja is truly legal in the Sunshine State, it’s not a great idea to throw a gigantic, open-air “medical marijuana” celebration fueled by 50 pounds of weed. That’s exactly what a group of Miamians attempted to do this past weekend by throwing what sounds like among the greatest stoner sessions in human history — only to get busted in a house that sat a mere six blocks from Miami Police headquarters.
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The City of Miami might want to consider testing Barnaby Min for drugs. The deputy city attorney must have been high when he compared legalizing medical marijuana to legalizing pedophilia during a Miami Planning Board session last week. He was arguing against dispensaries in the city. In the tape of that meeting, Min comes off like that college stoner kid who takes massive bong rips before giving a speech in class.

“If the City of Miami, for some infinite, God-forbidden reason, thought having sex with a child was a great way to recover from some issue and so we wrote that into our city code, just because the city says that’s legal doesn’t mean it’s legal,” he said.

Up in Tallahassee, state legislators are doing everything they can to undermine medical marijuana in Florida. Voters backed medical pot by more than 70 percent in November, and yet lawmakers responded by inviting the same guy who spent millions trying to defeat the measure to help write the new rules.

But despite all those statehouse shenanigans, medical pot dispensaries are finally a reality in Miami-Dade. Miami’s first legal storefront dispensary opened last week near the airport, and across the bay, commissioners will vote Wednesday on where three dispensaries could open in Miami Beach.

“We have been delivering to the Miami area since July, but we’re very excited to have a brick-and-mortar storefront so patients can avoid delivery fees,” says Kim Rivers, a spokesperson for Trulieve, the North Florida-based firm behind Miami’s first dispensary.

For now, the Trulieve dispensary is operating under rules passed between 2014-15, allowing low-THC products for a limited number of ailments and full marijuana products for terminally ill patients. The shop has a variety of marijuana-based medicines — from vaporizers to pills to tinctures — for qualifying patients.

Art Basel Miami Beach, one of the nation’s biggest art fairs, is upon us, which means all sorts of cool, interesting, weird, shocking, and downright breathtaking art will soon be splashed across town for all the world to see. If you can imagine it, it’s probably represented somewhere during Miami Art Week. And one booth at the art fair Spectrum Miami aims to set your imagination ablaze — with weed.

If the latest crop of polls is correct, medical marijuana will be legally available to sick people in Florida tomorrow. As of late October, close to 80 percent of Floridians supported Amendment 2, which would legalize weed statewide for medical purposes, such as helping cancer or Alzheimer’s patients. Sixty percent of the electorate needs to approve the measure for it to pass.

But even assuming it passes, many Florida residents might need to travel pretty far to get their hands on medicinal cannabis. That’s because multiple cities are already gearing up to pass six-month “moratoriums” on medical marijuana — including Miami Beach.

Police lights flashed outside Churchill’s Pub in Little Haiti, Miami this past weekend during the Vote Yes Marijuana Fest, but no one seemed to mind. The officers had been hired to work the event. There were no plans to rough up any of the participants of the festivities, which included a 2:30 a.m. blunt-rolling contest.

“The police understand,” organizer Oski Gonzalez said. “They don’t want to keep hassling people because of some marijuana. They want to be out looking for some real criminals.”

In May 2014, Miami-Dade Commissioner Dennis Moss placed a slightly controversial item on that month’s agenda. He wanted to investigate how the medical marijuana industry might affect agriculture in the county.

At the time, fellow Commissioner Javier Souto wasn’t thrilled.

“This is an item that’s causing a lot of arguments in our society. I think we have enough problems,” Souto said at the time. “It’s premature to jump into things like this.”

He was wrong, though. Just one month later, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed into law a measure allowing patients with cancer or seizures to use low-THC marijuana. And earlier this year, the law was expanded to give people with terminal illnesses access to high-THC marijuana as well.

Now, with two months left until full-fledged medical marijuana is back on the ballot in Florida, the county has released the results of that study initiated by Moss in 2014. Considering the laws currently on the books, officials believe the total sales generated each year could be as high as $124 million in Miami-Dade.

Pot is everywhere in Miami. Its scent wafts from bus stops, floats through open windows, and cascades out from under lifeguard stands on the beach at night. Spend more than a week here and you will, at least once, wonder if the server delivering you overpriced cocktails is stoned out of his mind.

Which is why it’s so surprising that, according to one of the most respected marijuana-usage surveys in America, roughly half the residents in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties think smoking weed once a month is “harmful” and should be avoided. That’s the highest rate in the nation.

The man on the corner of North Miami Avenue and 24th Street in Miami didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to. His sign did the talking. “Legal Medical Cannabis,” it said, and it pointed straight to NugBrand, a weed-themed apparel shop in Wynwood.

Inside, employee Kevin Machin let curious passersby down easy. No, the store wasn’t selling the potent medical marijuana you might find in a dispensary in California. It wasn’t even peddling the low-THC “Charlotte’s Web” strain recently made legal in Florida.

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