A square “on air” sign lights up inside the studio of La Poderosa 670 AM, located at SW Third Street and 27th Avenue in the heart of Little Havana. Clad in a tan guayabera and matching slacks, Jorge Rodríguez pushes a button on the phone next to his mic. It’s…

Inside the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California, a tense crowd of 17,526 is so quiet that even the top deck can hear Yin Alvarez frantically calling for help adjusting the parallel bars. “Let’s go,” the Cuban-American bellows in a heavy accent toward his wife, Maria Gonzalez. “Help me!” A…

View a slide show of Miami’s extreme body modifiers.

Nariz sat at a table inside the Dunkin’ Donuts on Alton Road at 16th Street in Miami Beach. It was late afternoon this past May 12 as the fidgety, 33-year-old Colombian waited for his new associate, a man we’ll call “Rata,” to show up. Nariz rubbed his bearded cleft chin…

The door to the kitchen of Mount Sinai Medical Center’s Founders Dining Room swings open. A tall, buxom, middle-aged woman with smooth, dark-cocoa skin saunters across the carpeted floor of the elegant cafeteria with a breathtaking view of Miami Beach’s Biscayne Bay. She wears a white dress shirt, black bow…

Click here to see outtake photos from the “Scum of the Earth” cover shoot. Pablo Marquez pumps his fists toward the rafters of Coral Springs Gymnasium. Sweat races off his forehead, dripping onto the soft cotton fabric of his royal blue leotard. His wide, brown eyes gaze menacingly at Ricky…

Seth Levy is ripping it. The urethane wheels on his skateboard roar as the 23-year-old University of Miami graduate glides from the bottom to the top and back down the smooth concrete bowl carved into Bethune Point Skatepark in Daytona Beach. Shortly after noon on October 15, this is the…

Irvin Rosenfeld is a hero to any sick person who has ever felt the positive, ultrahealing vibes marijuana has on the body. When he was 10 years old, Rosenfeld was diagnosed with a genetic disease that causes tumors to grow at the ends of the long bones in his body…

Florida and California have a lot in common. Both states have great weather, sunny beaches, and an abundance of marijuana. Except the Golden State is far more accepting of residents who spark up. In 1996, California was the first state to legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes. Thirteen states have…

It’s a scorching late afternoon in mid-July. Strolling on the sidewalk along the west side of Flamingo Park in South Beach, Eric Stevens approaches a man holding his toddler son by the hand. The blond-haired, blue-eyed University of Miami business school graduate asks the father if he is a registered…

2727 B.C. — The Chinese document the use of cannabis as a medication. 1911 — South Africa becomes the first country to outlaw cannabis. 1913 — California is the first state to pass anti-marijuana laws. 1928 — Great Britain bans recreational marijuana use. 1936 — Reefer Madness is released in…

Jazz legend Louis Armstrong. He preferred Mary Jane to booze and smoked it daily throughout most of his life, including before recordings and performances. Armstrong once proclaimed that gage, as marijuana was called in the ’20s, “makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro” and urged…

In early June 2008, a 21-year-old Kendall man we’ll call Johnny Greenthumb wanted to cash in on Florida’s largest cash crop. He rented a house on SW 62nd Street at 151st Court. Inside one of the three bedrooms, Greenthumb installed a dozen 1,000-watt light bulbs that hung from metal covers…

• Estimated annual revenue generated by marijuana, the nation’s largest cash crop: $35.8 billion • Estimated annual revenue generated by corn and soybeans, the second- and third-largest cash crops: $23.2 million and $17.3 million • Price of an ounce of sinsemilla, high-quality marijuana, in Florida: $300 to $500 • Price…

A camcorder lens zooms in on a patch of tall, dry grass and palm trees in a bushy field and finds a pair of discarded nylon bags used for animal feed. Flies swarm the camera. A rooster crows in the distance. “Shit, there’s maggots!” a voice says off-camera. A hand…

It’s just before the start of the Cotton Bowl Classic at Fair Park Stadium in Dallas on the morning of January 1, 1991. The University of Texas Longhorns line up against the University of Miami Hurricanes, the most reviled college football program in the nation. There is not an empty…