It’s mostly due to laws that make all police blotters (records of arrests and other incidents) in Florida open to the public immediately (and thus easy for journalists to mine for interesting stories).
Couple that with a huge population and something weird will happen most days.
As a 48 year old native Floridian who has traveled to less crazy states and countries, I do not believe our open records policies entirely explain the documented weirdness. The native born are a minority. Most of our population came here from somewhere else. I have been to the kinds of places from which they emigrate. To survive and thrive in places where it snows for a good chunk of the year requires a certain amount of keeping-your-shit-togetherness. In my experience, many immigrate to Florida or stay here because one can live relatively cheaply without ever planning ahead. This tilts our demographics toward the kinds of people who end up in Florida Man stories.
That and also things like rehab facilities placing themselves in Florida because people can pretend to be going on vacation when they go to rehab.
The ones who don't succeed in rehab get kicked out and the result is that addicts for various things (including alcohol, meth and opioids) wind up migrating the Florida and then getting stuck there.
