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The first legal medical marijuana sale took place in the State Capitol today. Trulieve, the north Florida licensed grower sold the fist low THC marijuana to Dallas Nagy. Nagy got several doses delivered over the weekend and picked more up ion the store today. Nagy suffers from a Parkinson like disease. His caretaker, Joann Bravata says the initial response has been positive.

“It’s gonna help him relax. He’s very nervous. He’ll be able to think clearly because of a lack of sleep.  He’s in a lot of pain,you know, medicines cause many different after effects. but with this, it’ll just calm him and there’s no bad side effects with this” says the caretaker.

Nagy himself says he’s glad to be the first to try the low dose cannabis.

“The first couple of nights I’ve been able to sleep. It relieves my cramping, what more can I say. it helps, and it gives other people like me hope” says Nagy.

Low dose THC does not produce an euphoria, but full strength THC goes on the market in August for terminally ill patients.  Current law does not go as far as what would be legal if voters approve Amendment 2 on the November ballot.

Today was the first day for elections Supervisors to mail out mail in ballots for the August 30th Primary. So far, more than two million ballots have been requested. In the State Capitol, Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho delivered more than 20 thousand ballots to the post office.

“This is the largest number of mail ballots for an initial mail out ever done, and that indicates to us that we’re going to have an unprecedented fall cycle of elections” says Sancho.

Supervisors have until the end of the week to make the first bulk mail drop. Ballots are due back in six days before the election.

Governor Rick Scott got a special delivery of algae from the east coast of Florida today from Congressman and US Senate Candidate Patrick Murphy. Murphy says Scott wouldn’t come see for himself, so Murphy brought the algae to the governor.

“We have repeatedly called on the Governor to come down and visitor district to see this first hand and the governor has refused to see it. so, I decided I wanted to come to Tallahassee and deliver this bottle of toxic algae to the Governor to make sure he sees exactly what we are dealing with on a day to day basis” Murphy told reporters.

For his part, Rick Scott wasn’t in the office. He was in Orlando announcing new jobs.

Big agriculture, dry cleaners and wastewater treatment plants are among those who would all benefit from a state plan approved on a three to two vote today. It allows more toxic chemicals to be dumped in our surface waters. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the presence of some chemicals could triple.

Environmentalists waived signs for an hours outside the building named for Florida’s  greatest environmentalist, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas.:

As proposed, Florida would regulates 39 new chemicals for the first time

The plan also allows higher rates of the regulated substances in drinking  and surface waters, but Tom Frick from the Department of Environmental Regulation says someone who eats a lifetime of fish exposed to the higher level of chemicals would face a minuscule increased risk of cancer.

“The risk of cancer for an individual increases point 0001 percent” Frick told the ERC.

But adamant environmentalists don’t trust DEP or the Gubernatorial appointed panel making the decision. David Kern is a Legislative Candidate.

“You’re saying that benzene is going to be tripling. What I see happening her is the potential move to poison water bodies in the state of Florida” says Kern.

The chairwoman is a registered lobbyist for two of the states largest agricultural interests.

Environmentalists came into the room believing  the deck is stacked against them. That’s becauseTwo seats on this panel, one reserved for local governments and the other for environmental groups remain vacant.

Jim Parker brought his grand daughter because he believes what happens here could affect her life.

I’m 70 years old so I don’t have the decades that they spoke about dealing with this issues, but she certainly does.”

The water standards were last set in 1992. DEP has been working on the update for the last four years.

Environmentalists have 21 days to appeal any action taken by the ERC.

Elections supervisors across Florida will begin putting more than two million domestic mail in ballots in the mail tomorrow, which is the first day they ballots can legally be mailed. Supervisors are reporting a 15 to 20 percent increase in ballot requests this election. Karen Williams at the Leon County Elections Supervisor’s Office says they have been working for more than a week to get the ballots out.

“We have to print and individualize an envelope for all of our vote by mail requesters and make sure they get their assigned ballot style and instructions and then we verify. So once everything assembled, we do a quality assurance check, and check every single ballot package to make sure it is accurate. Then we have to seal all of them, so the whole process takes about a week.”

Ballots can be returned up until six days before the August 30th Primary.

Florida’s first medical marijuana dispensary opened earlier today in the state Capitol without fanfare. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, the opening follows the first delivery of low THC over the weekend to a Pasco County man.

Trulieve opened it’s doors at 8 AM Monday, a day early.

Nat sot: “High there!”

We were met at the door by Frank Feliciano.

Q:”How many patients have you seen so far?”

A:”None so far”.

Just a couple on inquires?

“Yep, people inquiring.”

One of the curious is retired Army veteran Carey Carpenter.

“Do you anticipate going to a doctor?”

Yeah, I’m a veteran. I did two years in Iraq and the way the system is going now, they’re trying to make CBD legal for veterans. Trying to get off prescription medication, so just trying to see what my options are” says the Army Vet.

Over the weekend, Truelove delivered the first low THC to a Pasco County man He suffers from a Parkinson’s like disease. This picture shows the cannabis oil being put on cracker for oral consumption.

Trulieve’s Medical Director first agree to talk with us, then said he couldn’t.

To receive the low dose THC, patients must have it ordered by a qualified doctor. So far, just 81 doctors across Florida have completed the 8 hour course.

Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers told us last week the products are tightly controlled.

“There’s very specific…we have to track every product from seed to sale” says Rivers.

The company expects to begin offering high doseTHC products for terminally ill patients in August. A recommendation from two doctors is  required for high dose THC.

The Company plans a 2 pm news conference on Tuesday.

Six growers are authorized to deliver their products anywhere in Florida. The Florida Department of Health says only five patients have so far been certified to receive the low dose marijuana. When the program expands in August, as many as 7 hundred thousand people are expected to qualify for its use.

The shooting of a Miami behavioral specialist by a police officer while trying to calm an autistic man points to a lack of training for police dealing with someone who is autistic, say experts in the field. But, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, efforts to increase police training have gone nowhere two years in a row.

This video of a police officer shouting for an autistic man to lay down fell on deaf ears. Autism expert Victoria Zepp says the man sitting had no idea what he was being asked to do.

Q:“How important is it that police officers get additional training in recognizing someone who is on the spectrum?”

A:”It’s criticalIt’s critical for every single community because the individuals in a community have to feel like they can trust their police department. I mean I see a police officer and I thank them for their service, you know, and I also say, have you had any training in autism?”

The answer is usually no.  Florida currently spends 67 dollars a year on each officer for training and retraining.

Efforts to provide additional training for police to deal with autistic individuals has failed two years in a row, because of cost.

Lawmakers did pass a bill this past session that requires police to allow experts in the room when they are interviewing an autistic individual.

“I think what people need to know is that they’re aren’t good guys, bad guys in the process. it’s about education” says Advocate Zepp.

Sheriff Mike Woods says better training will help officers re-earn respect they appear to have lost.

“There are circumstances like that that aren’t necessarily with evil intent, but when you have a lack of training, a lack of preparation, these things occur.”

280 thousand Floridians, or one in every 68 of us, shows up on the autism disorder spectrum.

Congress is on vacation as Florida investigates what could be two cases of Zika potentially originating from mosquito bites here in the state. The state is also reporting 19 new cases of travel related Zika infections today, a one day record increase since daily reports began. Congresswoman Gwen Graham says the failure to fund a fight against Zika is an example of why people are unhappy with Congress.

“This was an example of the Congress not doing what we should do to provide the funding to provide the resources to those here on the ground for mosquito eradication efforts, and working hard with research and development to find a vaccine, particularly now that we found one case of local transmission, which is very scary because its the potential for an epidemic.”

The state has not yet determined if the two cases, one in Miami Dade and the other in Broward counties did indeed result from people being bitten by a mosquito in Florida.

School districts could receive grants of up to two hundred thousand dollars to install classroom panic buttons under legislation introduced by Congresswoman Gwen Graham. The one term representative says there is still time for congress to act on her Securing our Schools legislation before the school year starts and says if the buttons are good enough for Congress, they ought to also be in schools.

“I thought if members of Congress can have a security button under their desks, it would be something that would be beneficial to out teachers and students and everyone at our schools across the country to have a similar button” says Graham.

Graham says how the systems would work would be up to individual districts without creating a one size fits all program. The grants would come from the Department of Justice.

More than three hundred people have been diagnosed with the Zika Virus in Florida. All of them,so far, contracted the disease traveling abroad, but as Mike Vasilinda tells us, state and federal health agencies are investigating what they believe may be the first mosquito bite transmitted case in the state.

The state’s zika update shows 28 Florida counties have someone who’s been infected with Zika. the list does not include the home county for 46 infected pregnant women. Those infected are in counties the make up the vast majority of Florida’s 20 million residents.  Until now, all of the infected contracted Zika while traveling abroad. But while providing few details, the state now acknowledges it is investigating what could be the first non travel related case in the state.

Documents given to the federal government show it is two to three times more expensive to treat an area like this after a mosquito has infected someone with Zika, than it is to get rid of the mosquitos before hand.

What state health officials are looking at is unclear.

Glen Pourciau runs the mosquito control operation in the state Capitol.

Q:”If there were a case, you would immediately go in and clear the area of mosquitoes, Is that right?”

A:”Yes that’s the general plan. These mosquitoes tend to be weak fliers. They would travel usually two hundred yards.”

In extreme cases, aerial spraying would be deployed” says Pourciau.

“If we had multiple cases of locally transmitted, then the only way to respond, quickly enough, would be an aerial spraying program.”

Zika is usually transmitted by the bite of a mosquito, but it can also be spread through sex, blood transfusions, or exposure in a laboratory.

Florida has been told it will soon receive an additional 5.6 million dollars from the Federal Government to fight Zika. Calls and emails to the Department of Health asking how the money would be used and the status of the case under investigation went unanswered today.

An FSU library worker on duty in November 2014 when a gunman shot three people is suing the university for ignoring her trauma. Paige McFadden was on duty at the entrance of the library when the gunman entered, shot her co worker, then pointed the gun at her and pulled the trigger. She escaped injury when the gun did not fire.

“I feel like the University has forgotten about me. that’s it. they haven’t me at all. I don;t think they took into considerate the effects it would have on me mentally and emotionally” says the former library worker.

The interview with McFadden was conducted on the one year anniversary off the shooting. FSU says it did reach out to the victims of the shooting with trauma assistance and noted that McFadden only attended one of the classes.

Trump University – a for-profit education system that has landed Donald Trump in hot water – continues to be a thorn in Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi’s side.  As Matt Galka tells us, left leaning groups in the state want the feds to get involved.

Florida’s Attorney General is in Ohio stumping for Trump but that’s not stopping progressive groups here back home from continuing to call for an investigation.

Liberal group Progress Florida delivered 6,000 petitions to the US Attorney General’s office asking for an investigation into campaign contributions from Donald Trump to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“Floridians complained about their involvement with Trump University Pam Bondi received the campaign contribution from one of Donald Trump’s foundations and now there’s no follow-up action to investigate,” said Damien Filer with Progress Florida.

Bondi is scheduled to deliver a primetime speech for Donald Trump Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention. Her office had not yet returned a request for comment.

His nicknames include Mr. 305 and Mr. Worldwide and one state agency believes rapper Pitbull can draw more people to the state. As Matt Galka tells us, he is getting paid with some of our money…but how much is unknown.

Pitbull’s new song titled “Sexy Beaches,” is an ode to dozens of Florida’s beaches and scantily clad women. State tourism agency Visit Florida hopes it’s also a reason more people come to the sunshine state.

Pitbull is getting paid to attract visitor’s to Florida, we just don’t know how many taxpayer dollars he’s actually getting. The rapper inked a deal with Visit Florida last year.  The agency receives around $80 million dollars in taxpayer funding…but the details of the contract are being kept secret with Visit Florida citing they’d be revealing trade secrets.

Barbara Petersen with the First Amendment Foundation says that’s not fair to Floridians.

“Visit Florida is claiming that the amount of taxpayer dollars they’re paying Pitbull to promote the tourism interests of Florida is secret. This is our money…how do we know we are getting our money’s worth if we don’t know what he’s being paid?” she said.

But not everyone thought the video was wasting money.

“I didn’t see anything negative in what you just showed me,” said taxpayer Osmond Johnson after we showed him the video.

The video is being distributed through the rapper’s social media accounts and already has more than one and a half million views on YouTube.

One of the two suspects accused of carrying out a hit on a beloved FSU professor was back in court this morning. As Matt Galka tells us, it coincides with the somber anniversary of the professor’s death.

“What’s going on with him?”

“I don’t know. The driver side window is all bashed in, and he’s got blood all over his head.”

That was part of a 9-1-1 call form July 18^th, 2014.  A neighbor found Florida State law professor Dan Markell in his garage. He was shot twice in the head.  It was a murder mystery with minimal information for 22 months before two men were arrested and charged with killing Markel.

On the two year anniversary of when Markel was shot and killed here at his house, one of the prime suspects in his murder appeared in court. Sigfredo Garcia’s case management hearing Monday morning lasted less than five minutes.  His attorneys requested a speedy trial.

“Our primary objective at this time is to familiarize ourselves with the state’s discovery, and so that’s what we are going to do, we are going to let our actions in the courtroom speak for themselves and focus on the case and that’s all I can say at this point because we literally just got the evidence yesterday,” said Saam Zangeneh

The request was granted. Garcia’s trial begins November 14^th.

“That’s a strategic move that we made,” he said.

Police believe Garcia and another man, Luis Rivera, were hired to kill Markel two years ago.  Documents show a suspected connection between the family of Markel’s ex-wife and the accused killers, but other arrests have yet to be made. The other man accused in the murder for hire plot is already serving time on unrelated racketeering charges. His next court appearance is scheduled for August 1^st.

Slimy and smelly algae blooms are wreaking havoc on some Florida beaches, and as Matt Galka tells us, the issue has become politicized with a US Senate Candidate and the Governor’s office butting heads.

It started with Congressman Patrick Murphy’s office asking the Small Business Administration to hold off on a business relief announcement for people affected by invasive algae blooms. He wanted to do it at a Thursday press conference. The SBA had no problem, but Governor Rick Scott’s office did. The announcement was made Wednesday night.

The email chain was posted to the state’s Project Sunburst email database.  Murphy’s office denied that the Congressman wanted to delay any aid…and suggested the Governor’s office was playing politics with the emails they released.

The business relief center is now open and aims to help a handful of counties affected by the crisis.

“We are seeing that with the algae blooms there is economic injury to businesses within the effected counties. So we’ve gotten about 60 applications so far,” said Department of Economic Opportunity Executive Director Cissy Proctor.

Businesses have the ability to get a quick low interest loan to help alleviate the hits on their bottom line.

“For instance, a fishing charter will say I’ve got customers who are cancelling the reservations to go on the fishing charter because of the fact that the algae blooms are occurring in the water. It could be a restaurant on the beach, people may not want to go sit on a restaurant on the beach because of what’s going on,” said Proctor.

Businesses in 20 Florida counties are eligible to apply for the loans. Murphy is in the middle of a U.S. Senate campaign and the email flap has already provided fodder for some opponents. On the business side, you can see if you qualify for a loan by going to disasterloan.sbs.gov.