The Democrat-controlled Massachusetts Legislature sent an overhaul of the voter-passed marijuana legalization law to Governor Charlie Baker's desk Thursday - but not before a top Republican lit into the legislation. The Senate enacted the measure on a 32-6 vote. On Wednesday, the House voted 136-11 to move the bill forward. Baker is expected to sign the measure, which would raise cannabis taxes from what the ballot question envisioned, merge oversight of recreational and medical marijuana, and change how cities and towns can ban pot shops. [continues 675 words]
The legislation proposed in Massachusetts wouldn't change the basic marijuana rights of adults that the ballot question put in place. The Massachusetts Legislature is advancing an overhaul of the voter-passed marijuana legalization law Wednesday, when both chambers are expected to accept a House-Senate compromise bill in the afternoon. A final Senate vote, which would send the bill to the governor, is scheduled for Thursday. The legislation would change the legalization law passed by 1.8 million voters in November. [continues 324 words]
Massachusetts companies cannot fire employees who have a prescription for medical marijuana simply because they use the drug, the state's highest court ruled Monday, rejecting arguments from employers that they could summarily enforce strict no-drug policies against such patients. Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants said a California sales and marketing firm discriminated against an employee in its Foxborough office who uses marijuana to treat Crohn's disease when it fired her for flunking a drug test without first trying to reach an accommodation with her. [continues 723 words]
Representative Ronald Mariano, a Quincy Democrat and the majority leader, spoke about the revisions to the marijuana law on Monday at the State House. The Massachusetts Legislature is expected to approve a broad overhaul of the voter-approved marijuana legalization law this week after House and Senate negotiators agreed on a bill Monday that would hike marijuana taxes and change how communities can ban local pot shops. But the compromise immediately raised the specter of a serious legal challenge, and the bill drew a rebuke from the top lobbyist for cities and towns who said, should it pass, most municipalities would have trouble implementing the law. [continues 1007 words]
Tax rates and questions of local control have dominated the conversation surrounding the Legislature's rewrite of the voter-approved marijuana law. But for former firefighter Sean Berte, who spent eight months in federal prison for cultivating marijuana, the bill spells out something else entirely: a second chance. Berte initially swore off the drug that he says cost him his job, his life savings, and his freedom. But now, he sees an opportunity in the green-leafed plant - this time, on the right side of the law. [continues 940 words]
The compact mass spectrometer shows precisely what's in marijuana. The compact, high-tech chemical sensors made by the Boston startup 908 Devices are used by emergency responders to scan for toxins after industrial accidents, and by researchers in the pharmaceutical and energy industries to profile the composition of drugs and petroleum products. Now, the firm has unveiled a new sensor intended to give it a foothold in a less conventional but fast-growing industry: commercial marijuana. The sensor, dubbed the G908, is a countertop "push-button" mass spectrometer designed to identify cannabis compounds. Its designers say the device approaches the accuracy of traditional "gold standard" lab equipment but is far smaller, faster, cheaper, and easier to use. [continues 635 words]
Marijuana billboard in South Boston called 'insensitive' The advertisement was from Weedmaps, a California-based company that runs an online marijuana dispensary rating service and sells inventory software to pot shops. While waiting at a stoplight on East Broadway in South Boston last week, Sheila Greene looked up at a billboard and was stunned. In white letters against a black background, a message read: "States that legalized marijuana had 25% fewer opioid-related deaths." Greene was bothered by the fact that the advertisement - from Weedmaps, a California-based company that runs an online marijuana dispensary rating service and sells inventory software to pot shops - was placed in a neighborhood hard hit by opioid abuse. "I couldn't believe it was being advertised," she said. [continues 821 words]
At least 103 cities and towns - nearly one-third of all Massachusetts communities - have placed outright bans or other restrictions on marijuana businesses since voters legalized the drug for recreational use in November, according to a Globe analysis. And another 47 municipalities are actively considering restrictions, the review found, as local elected officials express unease about the state's venture into legalized recreational marijuana. Most of the restrictions are temporary, intended to allow local officials time to consider where marijuana shops should be allowed to operate in their communities - if at all. [continues 1266 words]
Strong motivation to seek and continue treatment makes a difference In "Stop calling addiction a brain disease" (Ideas, June 25), Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld write of how Michael Botticelli, the drug czar under President Obama, "drew an analogy between having cancer and being addicted. 'We don't expect people with cancer to stop having cancer,' he said." Comparing addiction to progressive brain cancer is misleading. Better to compare it to diabetes. Diabetics cannot choose to lower their blood sugar. Diabetics do have a choice, however - to enter treatment and take their medications and modify their diets. Addicts have a similar choice. They can enter and remain in treatment programs. But a strong motivation is necessary. Such motivation results from the realization that an essential component of their life is at risk. [continues 155 words]
Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld do an excellent job, in "Stop calling addiction a brain disease," explaining how a unidimentional brain disease model, rather than a biopsychosocial model of addiction, birthed the opioid epidemic. The 21st century is not the first time medicine considered addiction a brain disease. In 1889 Massachusetts built the Massachusetts Hospital for Dipsomaniacs and Inebriates in Foxborough, thinking overuse of alcohol could be cured in the same fashion as insanity was being cured at the time. [continues 116 words]
I cringe to think about some parent whose child is struggling with opioid addiction reading "Stop calling addiction a brain disease," and running to the mall to buy "gift cards or movie tickets" as incentives for their child to "choose" not to use. I cringe to think about the specialists who have worked so long to change our cultural thinking around addiction sighing as these outmoded ideas about addiction-as-a-choice are given prime media play. And I cringe to think of those who have been blessed not to have the specter of addiction touch their families reading this and thinking, "See, it's not a disease." [continues 215 words]
Independence Day is a celebration of freedom. But on this July Fourth, for the first time in more than a century, our freedoms in Massachusetts include the ability to legally buy, possess, and use marijuana. These privileges took effect in December, after voters approved a ballot question on recreational pot use. And that measure remains the law of the land, despite state legislators' ongoing debate over a rewrite of the rules. But it's worth remembering that this freedom is heavily qualified. So, after consulting with law enforcement experts and studying guidance issued by state officials, here are some recreational marijuana do's and don'ts. [continues 786 words]
The fate of marijuana legalization, enshrined in law by about 1.8 million Massachusetts voters, is now in the hands of a half-dozen lawmakers meeting in secret. Those legislators' first action on Monday was to kick out members of the news media, close the door, and begin their deliberations to reconcile fundamentally different Senate and House rewrites of the ballot question that legalized adult recreational marijuana's use and sale. "We're going to ask the press to leave," said Senator Patricia D. Jehlen, the Senate's point person on pot policy. [continues 718 words]
BOSTON -- After a week of sharp divisions and heated rhetoric over the future of the state's recreational marijuana law, it's now up to a conference committee of six legislators to try and sort everything out. On one hand, there's a House bill that infuriated pro-marijuana activists by proposing a major overhaul of the voter-approved law. On the other, a more restrained Senate bill won praise from the groups behind the November ballot question. Democratic Rep. Mark Cusack, the House bill's lead author, suggested before the votes that the two chambers were in about 80 percent agreement on their respective approaches. [continues 569 words]
A city-run day shelter that will house the homeless along Methadone Mile. ON A RECENT afternoon at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, a group of people tried to revive an unconscious man lying on a strip of grass. Only the white soles of the man's sneakers were visible to motorists as they waited for the light to change. Another man darted between the idling cars toward a Boston firetruck and said, "A guy over there OD'd, he needs help." [continues 174 words]
On the heels of a House rewrite Wednesday of the state's adult-use recreational marijuana law, approved by voters in November, local reaction has been mixed. Increasing the tax rate on marijuana sales from 12 percent to 28 percent and allowing local governing boards to ban or limit pot stores without asking local voters are among the more significant changes in the House bill. On Thursday, the debate over reshaping the law shifted to the state Senate, where a more modest set of revisions to existing law appeared headed for passage. [continues 925 words]
QUINCY, Mass. - A Massachusetts medical marijuana dispensary has created a culinary delight for patients who don't want to smoke their pot or eat it in the form of sweets. Quincy-based Ermont Inc. has been selling cannabis-infused pizza for about three weeks to rave reviews. Director of Operations Seth Yaffe says the company has a whole range of marijuana edibles, but he wanted to offer meals that patients could eat without a lot of sugar. The 6-inch cheese pizzas sell for $38 apiece. The tomato sauce contains 125 milligrams of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana. The company has sold about 200 already. Yaffe says if patients want toppings, they can add their own. Only people with state-issued medical marijuana ID cards are eligible to buy the pies. [end]
President Trump is ill advised to expend resources to shutdown state legal marijuana businesses ("Pot plans moving forward despite toughtalk from Trump," Feb. 27). As Jacob Sullum points out in his column: "According to a recent Quinnipiac University survey, 59 percent of Americans think marijuana should be made legal in the United States," while 71 percent "oppose the government enforcing federal laws against marijuana in states that have already legalized medical or recreational marijuana." Among Republicans, only 35 percent favored legalization, but 55 percent opposed federal interference with it." Steven S. Epstein, Georgetown [end]
I'd like to commend The Boston Globe for bringing attention to a new home-based program for children and families affected by the opioid epidemic ("A new program targets children of opioid addicts," Business, Jan. 16). As the article notes, parental substance use disorders present safety, developmental, and attachment-related risks to children, and this is especially so for those under 5 years of age. Sadly, the number of children affected by parental substance use disorders in the United States has more than doubled. For example, from 1998 to 2012, cases in which children were removed from the home because of parental alcohol or substance use rose from 14 to 31 percent of all cases of children being removed. [continues 99 words]
Senator Jason M. Lewis proposed legislation that would reduce the amount of marijuana people 21 years and older could possess in their home from 10 ounces to 2 ounces, and the number of marijuana plants people could grow from 12 per household to six per household. The right of Massachusetts adults to possess and grow marijuana would be sharply curbed, and the ability of retail shops to begin selling recreational pot next year would be deeply undercut if legislation filed Friday afternoon by a key state senator becomes law. [continues 705 words]
Inside Massachusetts
