Andrew Gillum is back in police custody after allegedly failing a court-ordered drug screening.
The onetime Democratic darling, who nearly became governor of Florida, was hauled away following a court appearance in Alabama. According to prosecutors, he skipped a mandatory drug test and then popped positive for methamphetamine when he was finally screened, as reported by multiple outlets covering the story.
Baldwin County Assistant District Attorney John Oxford laid out the details. Gillum had been enrolled in what is called a "color code drug testing" program. Here is how that works. Every defendant gets assigned a specific color. Each day, they must call a hotline to learn whether their color has been selected. If it has, they need to show up and provide a sample. Oxford confirmed that Gillum's color came up, and he simply did not appear. When he later showed up for a court hearing, officials administered a test on the spot. The result was positive for meth.
That was all prosecutors needed to lock him up again.
This is not the first time Gillum has found himself on the wrong side of the law in Alabama. Back in July, police pulled him over during a traffic stop in Daphne, Alabama. Officers searched his vehicle and allegedly discovered marijuana along with three packages that tested positive for methamphetamine.
The fall from grace here is truly staggering. Gillum was once considered a superstar within Democratic circles. Progressive activists absolutely loved him. National party heavyweights poured resources into his 2018 campaign for governor, where he came within a razor-thin margin of beating Ron DeSantis. Political observers were already mapping out his path to even higher office.
Then everything started to unravel.
In March 2020, a bizarre and widely covered incident took place at the Mondrian South Beach hotel in Miami Beach. First responders rushed to a room after receiving calls about a male who had apparently overdosed. Gillum and another man were discovered inside. Body camera footage from police revealed prescription pill bottles scattered around the room, along with small bags that many suspected contained methamphetamine. Ultimately, prosecutors chose not to file charges, citing insufficient evidence linking either man directly to the substances found at the scene.
This latest situation is a completely different ballgame, though. We are talking about a court-supervised monitoring program and a confirmed positive test result. That is not ambiguous. That is not circumstantial.
Some political observers have speculated about whether Gillum could ever stage a political resurrection. He was, after all, once just a few thousand votes away from running the entire state of Florida. But the mountain he would need to climb at this point is practically vertical. Between multiple arrests, alleged drug activity, and a public reputation that has been thoroughly shattered, the road back to political relevance looks nearly impossible for the former Tallahassee mayor.
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