The fight against drug addiction took a new direction this week when Massachusetts Environmental Police and New Bedford police boarded fishing vessels in New Bedford Harbor, searching for fishermen carrying illegal drugs for personal use.

"Commercial fishing is a dangerous enough job as it is," said Environmental Police Major Patrick J. Moran. "Using drugs makes it even more dangerous. Our intention was to stop the drugs from getting out to sea aboard the fishing vessels."

Over two days, four law enforcement vessels stopped 11 fishing boats heading out of the harbor, leading to arrests of at least six people on drug possession charges and of two people on outstanding warrants, officials said.

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The state Legislature is set to repeal a 27-year-old law requiring a driver's license suspension for those convicted of drug crimes, such as possession, that have nothing to do with driving.

The final vote could come as soon as next week, and Governor Charlie Baker has signaled he will sign the measure.

Advocates say the suspensions have been a major impediment for former offenders trying to rebuild their lives. Without a license, it can be difficult to find work, take children to day care, and get to drug-treatment programs.

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BACK IN 1966, concerned that so many young people were harming themselves through the use of marijuana, I began to review the medical and scientific literature to help clarify the nature of this harmfulness. Much to my surprise, I discovered that it was a substance remarkably free of toxicity. In fact, it is far safer than any pharmaceutical or recreational drug. There is no record of a single overdose death around the world from its recreational or medicinal use. Compare that to aspirin, which is responsible for more than 1,000 deaths per year in this country alone.

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The Massachusetts Hospital Association has joined a growing roster of opponents to a proposed ballot measure that would legalize marijuana in Massachusetts.

The group's board of trustees voted unanimously last week to oppose the measure, citing public health and safety concerns, including greater youth access to the drug.

"Clinicians and health care leaders from around the state have a clear message - this ballot measure is the wrong prescription for Massachusetts," said Lynn Nicholas, chief executive of the hospital association, in a written statement.

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FOR MANY years, I felt the sale and use of marijuana should be fully legalized, largely to deprive criminal gangs of a lucrative source of income and recruiting in our failed War on Drugs. But when I see the Colorado model, where companies create and market enticing marijuana-based products that are likely to appeal to children, and I read the compelling public health case made by Governor Baker, Attorney General Healey, and Mayor Walsh, I've reversed my position.

Don Carlson

Boston

[end]

Some parents and educators are cautiously backing a requirement that students be screened at schools for signs of substance abuse, but expressed concerns about confidentiality and how the state would implement the program.

The proposed drug screening is part of an opioid bill passed Thursday by the Senate and expected to be signed into law by Governor Charlie Baker.

The screening would be verbal. It would not include drug testing and would happen at two grade levels in public schools. Parents or legal guardians would have the option to exempt their children from screening.

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The Massachusetts House of Representatives unanimously approved legislation Wednesday that would require schools to screen students for drug abuse and work to curb opioid use by limiting doctors' initial prescriptions to seven days.

The Senate is expected to approve the bill Thursday, and Governor Charlie Baker is expected to sign it.

The measure is the Legislature's latest response to an opioid crisis that claims about 100 Massachusetts lives per month.

It is not as far-reaching as a proposal Baker made last fall, which called for a three-day limit on initial opioid prescriptions. But the governor has praised the bill nonetheless.

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The state senators who traveled to Colorado on a marijuana field trip were the butt of some jokes (including in this space). But the special Senate committee has produced some helpful research.

Normalizing the cultivation, sale and use of marijuana in Massachusetts would, of course, still be in conflict with federal law. That's the first knock against the campaign to get a legalization question on the November ballot, but it's certainly not the last.

As the senators discovered, a mile-high stack of legal complications would proceed from a vote in favor of legalization.

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Governor Charlie Baker sought much tougher legislation to deal with the opioid addiction crisis, but his spokesman said Tuesday that the current bill is "a strong step in the right direction.

The Legislature is poised to approve a bill this week that would require schools to conduct screenings of students for drug abuse and work to curb opioid use by limiting doctors' initial prescriptions to seven days.

Parents and students would have the ability to opt out of the screen, which would come in the form of a confidential interview with children at two still-to-be-determined grade levels.

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BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts may not be prepared for public health and safety issues associated with the potential legalization of recreational marijuana, a special state Senate committee that recently visited Colorado warned Tuesday.

In a 118-page report, the panel recommended steps that could be taken should voters approve a likely November ballot question that would allow the recreational use and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for those 21 and older.

The report suggested that taxes proposed in the ballot initiative would not cover the cost of implementing a recreational marijuana law and warned that a black market for pot would persist in the state even if the drug was sold legally at retail outlets.

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A scathing Senate report to be released Tuesday says that if residents legalize recreational marijuana in Massachusetts this fall, the state should promptly temper their vote by outlawing home cultivation, imposing a significant tax on the drug, and prohibiting some marijuana-infused edible products.

The report by a special Senate committee does not take an official stance on the proposed ballot question but warns of legalization's dangers. The authors note that it could make it easier for children to access the drug and create difficulties for law enforcement officers in determining and proving someone is too high to drive.

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This November, voters in Massachusetts will be asked whether to legalize marijuana.

Our state has already decriminalized the drug for personal use, and we've made it legally available for medical use. The question before us now is whether marijuana should be fully legal and widely available for commercial sale. We think the answer is "no."

Where marijuana is legal, young people are more likely to use it, according to a January report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The report found that while use among minors has declined nationwide in recent years, states like Colorado have seen an increase.

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Massachusetts could soon join the ranks of states that have eliminated laws requiring automatic suspension of driver's licenses for individuals convicted of drug crimes, provided the crime is unrelated to driving. But there is a kink in the works, one that has even the chief justice of the state's highest court concerned.

Of course no one wants to go easy on criminals involved in the drug trade. But getting to work, to school, dropping the kid off at day care or getting to the probation office - all activities required of a person actually trying to stay on the straight and narrow - become more difficult when an individual isn't permitted to drive.

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Marijuana dispensaries in Boston would have to sit at least half-a-mile apart under rules approved Wednesday by the Boston City Council.

The measure is intended to protect neighborhoods from being overrun with pot shops, in the event voters approve a likely November ballot initiative that would legalize recreational use of marijuana, said Councilor-at-large, Michael Flaherty, who sponsored the rule.

"I don't want to have another Combat Zone. I don't want to have a pot zone, a marijuana zone," Flaherty said. "I don't think one neighborhood should bear the burden of all of that."

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WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Monday to move toward final confirmation of a new Food and Drug Administration commissioner, brushing aside objections from Democrat Edward Markey of Massachusetts who opposed the appointment over FDA approvals of prescription opioids.

The motion easily cleared the required 60-vote threshold, passing 80-to-6. The bipartisan support set up a vote Tuesday to confirm for Dr. Robert Califf, a former Duke University researcher selected by President Obama to lead the agency.

Markey had placed a procedural "hold" last month on Califf in a bid to force the FDA to get tougher on addictive painkillers.

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A court clerk magistrate agreed Wednesday to file criminal charges against one of the state's leading proponents for the legalization of marijuana, for selling a cannabis-based oil product he says was used for medicinal purposes.

The decision could test the legality of selling cannabis-based hemp products in a state that has approved the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and where voters could decide in the fall on whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

A lawyer for marijuana advocate Bill Downing said Wednesday that his client has been targeted for his vocal support of legalizing marijuana.

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Patients voiced hope and frustration as the state's sixth medical marijuana dispensary formally opened Tuesday - more than three years after voters approved such use, a decision that had been expected to usher in dozens of dispensaries by now.

Executives of Patriot Care, operator of the new dispensary, which opened in Lowell, described the licensing process as a positive but long road and said that they opted for a cautious launch, offering just four strains of marijuana in the beginning but no other products, such as edibles, tinctures, or oils. And they said they want to make sure they have ample supplies. The first dispensaries that opened last year quickly ran into supply problems.

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I am a Franklin resident responding to the recent article about Franklin' S.A.F.E. coalition's plans to hold monthly treatment events. These events will provide immediate access to service providers for those suffering from addiction (and family members). They will also help seekers navigate the system and provide a pathway to long-term recovery. I commend the committee for taking steps to treat the opioid crisis for what it is, a crisis of mental health and not criminality.

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QUINCY -- Attorney General Maura Healey says she is "strongly opposed" to a marijuana legalization measure headed for the ballot this fall and fears that it could put the state's young people at risk.

Speaking with The Patriot Ledger's editorial board Tuesday, Healey said she worries that voters who are "rightly concerned" about prisons crammed with non-violent drug users have gone too far by embracing the legalization of marijuana, which has been legal for medical use in Massachusetts since 2013. She pointed to reports of emergency room visits and fatalities from drugged-driving crashes in Colorado, the first state to legalize the drug for recreational use as well.

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It's a message as old as the War on Drugs: If there's anything you need to know about marijuana, just ask a cop.

For some members of the Massachusetts state legislature, faced with the possibility that voters will legalize marijuana in November's election, the old playbook is the only one they have. So they invited some police in to explain drugs to them.

The results were as predictable as a middle school D.A.R.E. assembly. The cops, including an officer from Colorado traveling the country warning about the danger of legalizing recreational marijuana use, advised Massachusetts to "Just Say No."

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