If you live in Florida and are a fan of dangerous snakes, using bongs and stealing horses, Thursday will be a dark day.
That's because laws against pythons, bong sales and horse thievery along with about 140 other laws will officially go on the books in the Sunshine State on July 1.
The law against python ownership will include Burmese, reticulated and African rock pythons, as well as green anacondas and Nile monitor lizards.
The reptile bill, signed earlier this month by Governor Charlie Crist, prohibits importing or personally owning the non-native species. The bill has become necessary, proponents say, as thousands of pythons have made their way into the wild where they wreak havoc on local habitats.
Wildlife officials say the pythons eat anything in their path and they number in the tens of thousands.
Also going into the books Thursday is the so-called Bong Bill, which will make it illegal to sell the drug paraphernalia in most Florida head shops.
The bill prohibits the sale of the items by businesses that don't make at least 75 percent of their money from tobacco sales or make over 25 percent from sale of the prohibited items.
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Violators could face up to a year in jail.
The Bong Bill was sponsored by Rep. Darryl Rouson, of St. Petersburg, who hopes to curb what he sees as rampant marijuana use. Rouson, a former drug user himself, should know that pot smokers are nothing if not an inventive group, and will no doubt find other ways to get high.
Perhaps the law most relevant to South Florida is the Horse Meat Bill, which will create criminal penalties for anyone who buys, distributes or transports horse meat for human consumption.
The corpses of over two dozen horses have been found throughout South Florida in the past year or so, their meaty parts cut out and the heads, limbs and bones left to rot on rural Miami-Dade roadsides.
Anyone caught with horse meat could face third-degree felony charges. Activists hope the law will close a loophole which allowed horse owners to butcher their own horses for their meat.
Also going into law Thursday is the state's $70.4 billion budget as well as laws targeting people who provide alcohol to minors and people who put for-sale signs on cars parked on public streets.
But not animals are protected. Sadly absent, for the third year in a row, is the anti-bestiality bill, which didn't make it through the House vote.
That one will have to wait 'til next year.
