Ban on Utensils of Death?
In 2013, the Florida State legislature passed a socially conservative bill designed to rid the public of what one legislator termed are “utensils of death” or drug related bongs. Originally, the bill was going to crack down hard on bongs with broadly worded descriptions of the types of bongs being outlawed. The proposed ban also extended to objects made of stone, plastic, ceramic smoking pipes, wood, acrylic, metal, including those with screens, without screens, water pipes, camber pipes, punctured metal bowls, etc. However, the final bill which passed the senate by a vote of 31-2 and the House by a vote of 112-3 only makes it illegal for retailers to sell bongs with the intention to be used with illegal drugs. These devices can still be purchased as long as they are to be used only for tobacco.
The problem now lies in the 2014 signing of Charlotte’s Web, which permits the medicinal use of a non-euphoric strain of marijuana to treat children with epilepsy and individuals in the advanced stages of cancer. Interestingly enough, if this paraphernalia is being used for medical marijuana, the connotation of “utensils of death” doesn’t hold much water. Technically, there has never been a single documented instance of marijuana directly killing someone, and if there is one, the scientific and actual facts surrounding that death could be questionable.
Since the bill was signed, legal challenges have placed Charlotte’s Web in limbo, but this month Judge David Watkins threw out these challenges and paved the way for nurseries to begin growing this strain of marijuana. Now we must wonder if the legislature would focus its energy on such a ban with marijuana officially legal for use in certain medical cases and the possibility of it being decriminalized in the near future.
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