Earlier this year, police in Tallahassee, Florida raided the home of college student Rachel Hoffman, who friends say was a bit of a hippie-ish free spirit, and concede that she shared and sold small amounts of marijuana and MDMA within her social circle. Hoffman was at the time undergoing state-forced drug treatment after police found 20+ grams of marijuana in her car during a traffic stop. The raid turned up another five ounces of marijuana, plus six ecstasy pills and assorted pot-related paraphernalia.

From this, Tallahassee police apparently threatened Hoffman with prison time, then agreed to let her off easy if she'd become a police informant, and set up a deal with her supplier. They never informed Hoffman's attorney or the state prosecutor of the arrangement. They wired Hoffman, and asked her to arrange to purchase 1,500 ecstasy pills, cocaine, and a gun--a deal that would have run well over ten thousand dollars. Hoffman's friends and family have told me that all three purchases would also have been drastically out of character for her. Which means the dealers she was buying from were almost surely on to her.

Tallahassee police found Hoffman's body last week. The first thing they did was call a press conference in which they blamed Hoffman for her own death, stating that the arrangement she made with the police was consistent with department protocol, and that she agreed to meet with the dealers in a different location than the one previously agreed upon.

After public outrage, the city is now walking that back a bit, and has asked Florida's attorney general to look into the Tallahassee Police Department's procedures for dealing with drug informants.

Proving once again that the most dangerous thing about illicit drugs like ecstasy and marijuana isn't the drugs themselves. It's what the government does to you after you're caught with them.

Rachel's Parents intend to use the tragedy of their daughters death to get the laws changed. Including decriminalization of marijuana.

The Tribune noted that "Mike Weiss, Hoffman's stepfather, said he wants police to stop saying Hoffman broke protocol He asked how Hoffman could understand how important protocol is and how an untrained civilian could understand how to protect herself in such a situation. 'The reality is, untrained civilians of any age should not be put in that position by a police force,' he said. 'They took a 23-year-old relatively naive person and put her in a life-threatening situation.' Hoffman's mother, Margie Weiss, said she is forming a foundation to push for a requirement for confidential informants to seek legal advice before consenting to undercover work. It also would work to get marijuana convictions decriminalized. 'Her death will make history,' she said. 'It's a great loss. The only way I can make sense of it is by now having her memory live on.'